Bethel Pride

B E T H E L

FROM THE DESK OF...

Tom Seigel Superintendent

Spring is here, and we have a lot to celebrate!

For the fourth year in a row, Bethel has made Forbes's 2023 Best Mid-Size Employers list. Bethel is ranked:

• 230th in the nation

• 13th when you search by K-12 school districts nationwide

• 3rd when you search by companies in Washington state

• 1st when you search by school districts in Washington state

Only two school districts in Washington made the list this year (Auburn came in at 322).

Congratulations to our staff, who work hard every day to ensure our students are getting the best education possible. In doing so, they are creating a great environment to learn and work in!

This legislative session we have been working with our state representatives to push for changes and increased funding our students would benefit from. The following are the highest priority issues we focused on.

Regionalization: Bethel does not receive regionalization enhanced funding as a result of a faulty 2017 funding formula. All the school districts surrounding Bethel (except Eatonville) get 6% or 12%, putting us at a huge competitive disadvantage to attract and retain quality personnel. This equates to Bethel receiving $7 million less per year than other districts.

Special Education: We spend $3 million per year from our local levy funds to cover the shortfall in state funding to cover required Special Education services.

Transportation: We transport about half of our 20,000 students every day and we are tied with Evergreen School District as the most economically efficient bussing school district in the state. Still, we spend up to $3 million every year from our local levy funds for this essential service.

If you would like to reach out to your representatives in Olympia about these or other issues, you can find out which legislators represent you, and get their contact information at https://app.leg.wa.gov/DistrictFinder/.

Yours,

Tom Seigel

On the cover: Pierce County Skills Center Fire Science student Tristan Baumann put his knowledge to the test during a recent training exercise. Read more about Tristan on page 8.

Marcus Young, Sr. Vice President 253.439.7174 myoung@bethelsd.org

Terrance Mayers, Sr. 206.832.6203 tmayers@bethelsd.org

Brenda Rogers President 360.893.5425 brogers@bethelsd.org

Roseanna Camacho 253.210.1783 rcamacho@bethelsd.org

John Manning 253.222.2938 jmanning@bethelsd.org

BETHEL PRIDE SCHOOL BOARD

Bethel Pride is produced by the Bethel School District’s Communications Department.

Doug Boyles, Communications Director 253.800.2202; dboyles@bethelsd.org

Conor Christofferson, Assistant Director 253.800.2204; cchristoff@bethelsd.org

Email: communications@bethelsd.org

Website: www.bethelsd.org

Timra Knox, Graphic Design Manager 253.800.2203; tknox@bethelsd.org

Pam Paulsen, Secretary 253.800.2201; ppaulsen@bethelsd.org

Scan to visit BoardDocs

Questions and feedback: 516 176th Street East Spanaway, WA 98387 Phone: 253.800.2000

Bethel School District does not discriminate in any programs or activities on the basis of sex, race, creed, religion, color, national origin, age, veteran or military status, sexual orientation, gender expression or identity, disability, or the use of a trained dog guide or service animal and provides equal access to the Boy Scouts and other designated youth groups. The following employees have been designated to handle questions and complaints of alleged discrimination: Civil Rights Compliance Coordinator, Debbie Carlman, dcarlman@bethelsd.org, 253.800.2019; Title IX Coordinator, Bryan Streleski, bstreleski@bethelsd.org, 253.800.4302; and 504 Coordinator, Andrea Landes, alandes@bethelsd.org, 253.800.2301. All individuals may be reached at this address: 516 176th Street East, Spanaway, WA 98387.

El Distrito Escolar de Bethel no discrimina en sus programas o actividades por motivos de sexo, raza, credo, religión, color, nacionalidad, edad, condición de veterano de guerra o grado militar, orientación sexual, expresión de género o identidad, discapacidad o uso de perro guía entrenado o animal de servicio, además ofrece igualdad de acceso a los Boy Scouts y a otros grupos de jóvenes especificados. El empleado mencionado a continuación ha sido designado para atender consultas y quejas de supuesta discriminación: Coordinadora de Cumplimiento de Derechos Civiles: Debbie Carlman, dcarlman@bethelsd.org, 253.800.2019; Coordinador del Título IX, Bryan Streleski, bstreleski@bethelsd.org, 253.800.4302; Coordinadora 504, Andrea Landes, alandes@bethelsd.org, 253.800.2301. Todas las personas pueden ser contactadas en esta dirección: 516 176th Street East, Spanaway, WA 98387.

TheBethelPrideisintendedtoinformthecommunityatlargeaboutthegoingsoninthedistrict.Becauseweusebulkmailing, individualaddressescannotberemovedfromthemailinglist.

BOND CONSTRUCTION UPDATE

Elementary #19 (Fall 2024)

Construction crews will break ground on the Elementary #19 project this spring and look to have it completed in the fall of 2024. The approximately 68,000-square-foot building will house around 500 students.

As part of the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction’s requirements for state funding, a constructability review was performed and the final reports were accepted by the Board of Directors and will be implemented. This is necessary in order to be placed on the list for state matching funds.

The report is performed to review the architect’s construction document for thoroughness, coordination, and readability. The goal of this process is to improve the contract document’s effectiveness in bidding, construction administration, and closeout.

New Naches Trail Elementary (Fall 2023)

Construction on the New Naches Trail Elementary School is still on schedule for its completion this fall. The new 77,000-square foot school will house 41 general classrooms.

Evergreen Elementary Expansion (2025)

Once the New Naches Trail is completed and staff and students move into the building, the old Naches Trail Elementary will become home to the Evergreen Elementary staff and students in 2024, while the renovation and expansion of their school takes place.

The Evergreen Elementary project will expand and modernize the current building, which was originally built in 1979.

The project is scheduled to be completed in 2025.

Graham-Kapowsin High School Expansion (Fall 2023)

Construction is well underway on the Graham-Kapowsin High School expansion project. The 33,000-squarefoot expansion is adding a new classroom wing, an auxiliary gym and weight room, along with a larger commons area and administrative spaces. The new wing will allow students and faculty members to move from portables back into the main building.

Once construction is done, GKHS will also be home to a new School-Based Health Clinic, the construction of which is being funded through a congressional award that Congresswoman Kim Schrier spearheaded. It will offer students and staff from GKHS, Frontier Middle, and Nelson Elementary a free clinic for an assortment of medical needs.

New Bethel High School (Fall 2026)

Construction on the New Bethel High School project is anticipated to begin in early 2024. The construction timeline is 27 months, with an anticipated opening in the fall of 2026, subject to permitting.

The Board awarded the preconstruction phase of the New Bethel High School construction project to Cornerstone General Contractors of Bothell, WA. The district interviewed four general contractors and their teams for the project. Cornerstone General Contractors received the highest combined score.

The healing power of art

An art teacher and a school counselor have teamed up on a unique project that both educators hope will bring students together and help them better understand their emotions.

Liberty Middle School counselor Trisha Pak was looking for a way to spruce up her “sterile” counseling center, and she knew she wanted to fill the space with some sort of student art. She was watching a movie when she got the idea to create a wisteria tree for the center. “When I looked up (wisteria trees), it actually has symbolic meaning about lifelong devotion, which is how we feel about our students. So that’s where it came from,” she said.

Pak contacted Liberty art teacher Della Richardson to see if she and her students would be interested

in teaming up on the project. Richardson spoke to her students, and they began creating what will eventually become a 12-foot tall, 5-foot wide wisteria tree, with 25foot branches that drape over the hallway.

Richardson said she wanted the tree to be something the audience could interact with, rather than just observe.

“We came to the conclusion that the most important part of it was how do the students feel walking into it,” she said.

Pak loved the idea, and saw the tree as a place students could come to deescalate when they were worked up.

“I was thinking about, as a kid, going

to Disneyland or going to a park and the magic of nature, and trying to build an environment that will deescalate them just by being there. We also decided to include words of affirmation that are picked out by the students that will be on those branches, so we can point to the kids to look up, look at the lights. You guys are all symbols of those lights, and those words are all about you," Pak said.

Richardson believes the tree will leave a lasting legacy that students will use for years to come, and she loves that she’s able to play a part in that.

“This is why I do what I do,” she said. “This is why I love my job. This is why I love Liberty. This is why this is my home. These students are my kids, too. They’re my world.”

Student working to end Alzheimer's

Losing someone close to you can make you feel alone and helpless, but it can also create a spark inside you.

That’s what happened to a Cougar Mountain Middle School student named Roselyn when her beloved grandfather passed away after a battle with Alzheimer's disease. Roselyn, who was just 6-years old at the time, knew she wanted to do something to end the disease that took her grandfather.

“That summer of his passing I started doing lemonade stands (to raise money for Alzheimer's research) and that was tons of fun. From there, I created a pageant called Miss Forget Me Not,” Roselyn said.

At the pageant, girls compete and host events to raise money for Alzheimer’s. At the end of the event, every girl is given an award for their work.

As if that wasn’t enough, Roselyn also runs a small nonprofit of her own called Roselyn's Caring Canvases, where she paints artwork for senior citizens and teaches art classes. So far, she has painted more than 1,100 canvases to give to senior citizens across Washington state.

“I consider myself an artist. I love painting and I also love to volunteer at nursing homes,

so I kind of just put those two together,” Roselyn said. “It makes them smile. We go there and deliver paintings to them and it’s just so sweet. I love it.”

She recently had the opportunity to present some of her handpainted art work to state lawmakers in Olympia. She spoke to them about her story and asked for greater funding for the cause here in Washington state.

“It’s so amazing. I love going to Olympia and going to the state capital and having my own speech to tell them. I love being there,” she said. “It’s very impressive to see a 12-year-old at a place like that.”

You don’t often see preteens hobnobbing with politicians and organizing charity events, and Roselyn said her own friends are surprised by her level of commitment.

“They’re mind blown,” she said with a chuckle. “They can’t really relate.”

Roselyn said she wants to continue raising money and awareness until Alzheimer's disease is a thing of the past. But that’s not her only plan for life. She also hopes to attend Cornell University after she graduates high school.

Fire Science student puts life-saving skills to use

It’s not every day that you’re put in a position to perform a heroic act, but when a Pierce County Skills Center student was recently placed in a lifeor-death situation, he stepped up.

Tristan Baumann is a Bethel High School senior who also studies Fire Science at the Skills Center. Tristan was in his third period class when, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a fellow student had fallen to the floor. The girl was convulsing and appeared to be having a seizure. Tristan rushed over and began offering her medical aid.

“I

noticed she was having trouble

breathing, so I went to put her on her side – also known as the recovery position – and then I opened her airway up so she could get all the foam out of her mouth,” he said. With Tristan’s help, the girl recovered and is going to be okay.

Tristan says he was confident enough to step up and help thanks to the Skills Center's Fire Science program, where he was taught CPR and other life-saving techniques.

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” Tristan said. “I don’t really know what

was going on in my head. I had a lot of adrenaline going. I couldn’t really think much, but I knew exactly what to do because of my Fire Science class here at the Skills Center.”

Tristan was just glad he was in the right place at the right time, and said it feels great to be thought of as a hero. The entire event solidified his desire to become a professional firefighter. When he graduates, he hopes to become a wildland firefighter with the Department of Natural Resources.

From PCSC to PCSD

Eckhart grew up in Spanaway and the Pierce County Skills Center’s Criminal Justice class offered her a hands-on, interactive environment to explore what would become her future career. She said she loved the class and even earned dual credit (high school and college) when she graduated. That’s something many of the PCSC classes offer, and it sparked something inside her.

“I wasn’t even thinking about going to college at the time,” she said.

After graduation, Eckhart attended an event for women interested in careers in law enforcement. There she was advised to get her degree, “...even just an associate’s…” before applying to become a police officer. So Eckhart went back to school, this time at Pierce College. She graduated, and then applied to become a Pierce County Deputy.

“I wanted to work where I grew up,” she said. “I loved the Skills Center. I wish I had found it years beforehand, because I would have tried out so many other classes!”

While exploring other classes would have been fun, Eckhart said Criminal Justice was her favorite by far and she has now turned it into a career as one of our School Resource Officers.

Deputy Eckhart started as an SRO in February of this year. New to the job, she’s seeing a lot of things she likes across the district.

“I think the most interesting part so far is just seeing how all the school admin work hard. You have teachers and even campus safeties that pour their heart and soul into it,” she said. “They care for all these kids, and seeing that to me is just refreshing because on patrol, you see not so great things and so being able to see that there are people who love and care for kids … the kids don't always have that at home, and for me that's been kind of the part that makes me happy to see.”

Deputy Becca Eckhart is home.

Cooking up excitement at the PCSC!

Most parents are satisfied if their kids can prepare a grilled cheese sandwich without burning the house down. Thanks to Chef Ben Witten, parents with students attending the Pierce County Skills Center’s culinary program can expect a little higher quality cuisine.

Witten’s students are regularly creating dishes like pecan-smoked cherry barbeque ribs, pickle brined fried chicken, and upside down apple ricotta cake.

It’s no wonder the kids are making such gourmet meals, considering Witten spent years working as a chef in fine dining establishments throughout the world. Even with his success in the kitchen, Witten’s first love has always been education.

When he saw an opening at the Skills Center six years ago, he knew he’d found his home.

Witten knows most of his students won’t end up as professional chefs, but he’s convinced that the skills they’re learning in his program will carry over to whatever career path they choose.

“It’s not just about training chefs," he said. "We have a lot of students who come in with an interest in running food trucks or being in the hospitality industry, but we also have students come in who just like to cook. And the beauty of it is cooking is so personal, so creative, and it takes a lot of passion and interest. So even if they don’t go on to become chefs, it’s an opportunity to learn how to be

intrigued and how to ask questions and how to grow, so when they leave here they have those skills.”

Not only are the students learning about food, but they’re also learning about business. The students run their own restaurant called the Glacier Grill, where they do everything from crafting a menu to cooking and packaging food, to marketing the restaurant and serving customers. “We’ve gone from just our staff eating here, to staff and students eating here, to now having regulars who come every week from the public,” Witten said. “That’s really satisfying, because it’s really showing the quality of what these students can do. These are 16, 17-year olds, and they’re creating food that people are coming back for.”

GKHS journalism teacher hopes to improve student media literacy

Now more than ever, it’s vitally important for young people to know how to consume news and information. It’s easy to be misled by “fake news,” and it’s getting more and more difficult to parse what is legitimate news and what is not.

That’s a problem Graham-Kapowsin High School teacher Cole Polson hopes he can help to solve. Polson is GK’s new journalism teacher, and part of his curriculum is teaching media literacy.

“We’ll be really digging into that and just understanding how we can decipher credible sources from non-credible sources and the effect of spreading misinformation on society,” he said. “I think that’s going to be a very important skill that students take away from the class.”

Polson was raised in Minnesota, which is where he began his teaching career. He has family in Washington and always dreamed of moving west, so when an opportunity arose to teach English Language Arts and Journalism at GK, Polson jumped at it. His first journalism course is now underway, and he’s excited to work with his students.

“The students who take these types of courses, who take electives like this, seem to be getting into it because they want to deal with the core content which, in journalism, is broadcasting and writing. I think getting into that aspect of the class is going to be exciting,” he said.

Physical Therapist

Rachael Guilford originally got interested in becoming a physical therapist after working with kids with life-threatening illnesses at a summer camp. Now, she works at six different schools in our district, and her caseload has kids ranging from preschool to high school.

“I absolutely love it so far,” she said. “It’s been a blast to be able to work with different kids at different levels.”

Some students she sees need work on their motor skills, like throwing, catching or kicking, things she can help with on the playground. For other cases she can join kids in gym class. But there are others that require a different approach.

“I have some kids in wheelchairs,” she said. “So we’re able to move to a different room, get them out of the wheelchair, and onto the ground working on strengthening.”

Her goal is to help kids get stronger and for them to be as independent as possible. But it’s not a solo job. Rachael works with other therapists in the district, including speech therapists and occupational therapists. She also works alongside school psychologists and principals to get students what they need to succeed in class.

“I’m able to see from all different angles how we can all work together to make this educational experience better for that student,” she said.

Many ways to make

Nurse

Whether she's writing medical or physical assessments for IEPs, giving vision and hearing screenings, or dealing with the unplanned bumps and bruises that accompany a typical school day, Registered Nurse Melissa McCoy loves working with our students. With 20 years of nursing experience, Melissa has seen it all. And that includes some life-saving moments in the school office. One student that reported to the health room had passed out and stopped breathing, so Melissa gave her rescue breaths while 911 was on their way. The student went to the hospital and is now okay, but Melissa said, “It just shows how quickly things can progress when kids get hurt.”

Working in a school has Melissa dealing with students who have asthma, diabetes, seizures and more. Melissa said it’s her goal to keep them healthy so they can focus on their learning. “You still get to use your critical thinking, but now you’re shifting to, how we can make a student successful in the school.”

She couldn’t do it alone. Melissa said working to keep students moving forward is a huge team effort. “I really love the people I work with,” she said.

Social Worker

School social workers serve many roles, from providing help to at-risk students so that they can succeed in the classroom, to assisting entire families by providing crisis intervention and referrals for those in need.

Allysen Lindstrom is in her fourth year as the social worker at Rocky Ridge Elementary. She divides her time between doing classroom lessons with kids, small group work, and one-onone interventions. “That’s always my goal, to hit all three levels, a big group, a small group of some kind and then obviously talking with kids as needed on an individual basis,” she said.

Allysen started as a Family Resource Coordinator at Rocky Ridge, which she did for three years while earning her Master’s Degree to become a social worker. It’s a job she loves, but not a job that always has all the answers.

“I tell kids all the time, I am in the gray with you,” she said. Allysen said that phrase means understanding there aren’t always answers to life’s big questions. While in math class, 2+2=4, some questions her students are facing don’t have answers like that.

“I try to be transparent with that, because I’m also not going to solve their problems,” she said. Her job is to help students work through what they’re facing, and solve the problems alongside them.

make adifference

Bus Driver

For Chris Ferguson, family played an important role in why he decided to become a bus driver in Bethel. “At the time I was working graveyard, and so we would barely see each other,” he said. “I was missing all the sports, all the assemblies … the concerts and all that stuff. So it really was just motivated by wanting to spend more time with my kids.”

Not only is he on the same schedule as his family now, but he said working in Transportation has a family feel as well. “We all look out for each other here at Transportation, from the drivers to the mechanics to the admin to dispatch to routing. Everybody does their best to look out for each other and help each other … that is the ideal work environment, to come and feel like you are a part of something,” he said. Chris loves his job and said working with the students is his favorite part by far. “I'm able to connect with the students on the bus," he said. "I see them out, you know, because I live in the community as well … I just over the weekend saw a couple of them, one of them at WinCo, one of them at Walmart, and they're like, ‘Hey, that's my bus driver!’”

If you’d like to join Chris and work with a great team of folks, we are hiring bus drivers right now. For more information just visit jobs.bethelsd.org.

Occupational Therapist

Every day is different for occupational therapist Katie Christensen. In her job she works with students from across the district, ages three to 21. So she could be working with a preschooler focusing on basic, fine motor skills like learning how to hold scissors or pencil, or working with high schoolers on executive functioning skills, like how to plan.

Katie’s creativity comes into play consistently, as she uses a variety of techniques to engage the students she’s working with – using shaving cream to learn letters, or having students lay on a swing while assembling a puzzle. Success comes from celebrating the little things. “It’s when you can celebrate little tiny achievements with a parent,” she said. “When a child learns to write their name for the first time on their own, when they learn to draw a shape on their own, or when they’re able to participate for a full thirty minutes.”

Bethel is home to Katie and her own kids, and working in her community is a big reason for doing what she does. “I love working with the kids. I love being able to see kids from when they are preschoolers to when they graduate from high school,” she said.

Psychologist

Ashley Literski started work as a high school special education teacher in North Carolina. After a time she decided she was called to help students get the services that they needed to succeed in school. And she found “school psychologist” to be the way she could do that.

“School psychologists determine what those needs are,” she said. “We’re able to do those assessments and really dig deep into student needs.” In her new role here in Bethel, Ashley meets with students and their families, and does different assessments to learn how best to help each individual student. As she does a variety of assessments, from cognitive to academic, she is building relationships that will help her and the students succeed.

“I found that one of the best ways to build rapport with students is to play games with them,” she said. So Ashley uses games that have a social emotional component to them, to not only foster the relationship, but to also build those social emotional skills in her students. “It’s a lot harder to build up that rapport and that relationship with a student when you’re just asking academic demands on them,” she said Ashley said Bethel has given her a lot of opportunities to succeed in her job, from leadership opportunities to professional development in areas she's been interested in.

Science students purifying E. coli

Recently at Bethel High School, biomedical innovations teacher Jennifer Morrison and her class were making art using bacteria.

For three weeks, Morrison’s students worked on a lab where they took a gene and inserted it into non-pathogenic E. coli. After growing the protein inside the E. coli, the students took the protein out, purified it, and then ran a test to prove it was purified.

“In the scientific community, that’s used every single day,” Morrison said. “That’s how insulin is made.”

She said it was an intense three weeks, so now she weaved in some art for her students.

“We are taking agar, which is the home of bacteria where it can live, and we’re using it as a canvas to take bacteria that has been transformed by different genes that code for proteins of different colors. So we have bacteria that is green, purple, pink and blue, and our students are combining art and science,” she said.

This type of art dates back nearly 100 years.

“Alexander Fleming was the first person to do agar art when he discovered penicillin,” Morrison said. “He then created agar art for the Queen of England at the time.”

DISTRICT CALENDAR

*Pleasenote: AllschoolboardmeetingswillalsobeavailableviaZoom.

Bethel School District No. 403

516 176th St. E., Spanaway, WA 98387-8335

(253) 800-2000 | www.bethelsd.org

Spanaway, WA 98387

Bethel School District Resident