The following interview with school board directors Camille Diaz Hackler and Kelly Bashaw was published in the Fall 2019 edition of InsideSchools, the community newsletter of Bellingham Public Schools. Why have a race and equity policy? Camille Diaz Hackler: I think the majority of people don’t think about race and equity because they don’t have…
Even if “nothing” is the default answer to, “what did you do in school today?” elementary families now have snapshots from their students’ day thanks to Seesaw, a digital student portfolio available to all elementary schools. Families who sign up can see their student’s work and the communication between their student and teacher, both online…
Beginning this school year, a traveling book club kit is making the rounds at elementary schools. The book kit started as an idea by the Columbia Parent Association as part of their inclusion committee. Last spring, the Columbia Parent Association was awarded a Project Neighborly Grant from the Whatcom Community Foundation for a traveling book…
This time of year we are thinking a lot about endings—but for our new teachers in Bellingham Public Schools, this was just the beginning. All year long, our first- and second-year teachers are mentored through Beginning Educator Support Team (BEST), a grant-funded program sponsored by the state of Washington. Facilitated by veteran teacher Andrea Quigley,…
For the past three years, volunteer coordinator Jennifer Gaer has been growing the volunteer program in Bellingham Public Schools. She’s organized and streamlined the process for volunteers to register and find opportunities. She’s also built relationships and connections with many of the more than 5,000 volunteers. She noticed that many of her volunteers were retired…
Newly-constructed Happy Valley Elementary school is the most energy-efficient school Bellingham Public Schools, a Dec. 2017 energy use audit showed. The data point is the Energy Use Index (EUI). This index expresses a building’s total energy use as a function of its size or other characteristics, and is expressed as energy used per square foot per…
Elementary school librarians created the You’ll Enjoy These Incredible Books! (YETI) Books competition to challenge students to read books from a variety of genres and to work together as a team. A year in the making. Each year school librarians from across the Pacific Northwest nominate the best, recently published novels for middle grader readers…
Students from Happy Valley Elementary School and Shandong Normal University joined hands as they danced and sang together at the direction of music specialist Katie Tully. This interaction was made possible through a partnership with Can Edu Consultants in Vancouver, British Columbia. A group of 19 students and three adults from Shandong Normal University came to Bellingham to…
How does your garden grow? In Bellingham schools, it grows and flourishes with the constant and passionate involvement of Common Threads Farm, a non-profit organization dedicated to teaching kids where food comes from, how to grow it, and how to become a healthy eater. In Bellingham Public Schools, 13 of our 14 elementary schools and two of our middle…
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