927 EAST FAIRHAVEN AVE. BURLINGTON, WA 98233 (360) 757-3311
OCTOBER 2018
OFFICIAL NEWSLETTER
WELCOME BACK Laurel Browning, Superintendent Our community chooses to protect and maintain excellent educational opportunities for our children and to take care of their capital investments. Our students have enjoyed many successes because of the community’s financial support and volunteer efforts. The community will have an opportunity to vote to improve and build new facilities to increase middle-grade programs, ease overcrowding, reduce class size, and upgrade safety and security at every school. Bonds are the way Washington State funds major building projects. Proceeds from bonds cannot be used for salaries or classroom operations. The McCleary court decision was meant to fund basic education, which does not assist in the construction and renovations of facilities. The last school bond passed was in 2001 to build Lucille Umbarger School and add a new gym and cafeteria space to Allen School. Our Board has used taxpayer dollars wisely to maintain facilities and for long-range planning, which includes the February bond projects. The residents of the Burlington-Edison School District, for over 125 years, have valued quality education and continue to uphold that tradition. I extend a heartfelt thank you to all who continue to sponsor future forward opportunities and excellence for our children and community.
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Don McMoran, Community Member, B-EHS Graduate '94 In 1939 my Grandfather Delbert “Del” Galbreath played his last Burlington football game against the Sedro-Woolley cubs. The outcome was an unfortunate 13-0 loss. According to the 1939 Tina Coma, “In games won and lost the Tiger football team was not as big a success as hoped for, but in sportsmanship, friendliness and cooperation the team was a complete success.” The Tigers won three games that season to Concrete, Arlington and Oak Harbor. I will fail to mention the score of the Bulldog and Seahawks game on purpose. It wasn’t long after this picture was taken that the leadership of the Burlington and Edison school districts realized the need to combine the two districts into one and the Burlington-Edison School District was born along with a formidable opponent in athletics and education. Now more than ever, the Burlington-Edison School District, needs us to help support the next move in bringing our students together. There have never been greater inequalities in the education and opportunities provided to our 7th and 8th graders under our quasi K-8 model. That model served my grandfather well but the majority of schools in Skagit County, Washington State and the United States have middle schools. Let’s not make growing up in the Burlington-Edison School District about what neighborhood you grow up in. Let’s quit losing to Anacortes, Mount Vernon and Sedro-Woolley academically, level the playing field and make a great education for all students at the new BurlingtonEdison middle school.
Del Galbreath
Thank you and Go Tigers!
Sue Wright & Kevin Gudgel, B-EHS Teachers Having lived and taught in Burlington for over 20 years and raised children who attended Burlington-Edison schools give us a unique perspective of all of the benefits this bond has to offer. A challenge that our school district currently faces is the inequity in programming between the four different schools in the middle grades. Building a new middle school will allow for EVERY 7th and 8th-grade student in our district to receive equitable experiences in terms of instruction, elective opportunities, and enrichment programs - all in a brand new facility equipped to the standards necessary for a 21st-Century education.
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Tamara Skeen, Principal of West View Rebecca is a five-year-old, eager and ready to start school at the newly built West View Elementary. She is not worried about safety or building features, she is worried about new friends, meeting her teacher and learning to read. As Rebecca’s parents nervously send her to school, they are excited to be sending her to a brand new state-of-the-art building. The year of Rebecca’s kindergarten experience – 1951. For almost 70 years, many West View students have had the good fortune of attending West View Elementary. We are a school filled with enthusiastic little learners, and passionate, dedicated teachers. We are proud of West View’s rich history, and many successful alumni. However, the modern building Rebecca’s family excitedly sent her to in 1951, now desperately needs attention to improve safety and access for our students in the 21st Century. With the passing of the Bond, our students will no longer have to exit the school building to eat lunch in a portable in the parking lot. Having our cafeteria housed within the school will provide much-needed security, and give students easier access to restroom facilities, the office, and their classrooms. In addition, the removal of the cafeteria portables will increase parking, traffic flow and safety in the parking lot. With the passing of the Bond, our students will no longer have to use a gym barely the size of a basketball court. Like students in our neighboring communities, our students will have access to a full-size state-ofthe-art gym with the capacity to comfortably hold sporting events, music concerts and assemblies. The gym will not only support learning and engagement for West View families but will be a facility the community can access and enjoy. At West View, we are extremely proud to be Bobcats, and proud of the rich seventy-year history of our school. However, we recognize that the school designed to meet Rebecca’s needs in 1951, is not sufficient to meet the security and access needs of 2018. We are eager and excited for the facility upgrades this Bond will afford us as West View continues to thrive and learn in the 21st Century.
Arturo Vivanco, West View Teacher Estimadas familias del Distrito Escolar Burlington-Edison. Nuestra mesa directiva ha pasado una resolución para pedirles a electores calificados para votar en la elección especial de Febrero 12, 2019. Mi nombre es Arturo Vivanco. Nuestra familia ha sido parte de esta comunidad desde 1974. Durante estos años, he visto a nuestra comunidad crecer mucho, pero varias de nuestras facilidades se mantienen igual. Yo como miembro de esta comunidad los quiero invitar a que apoyen nuestro próximo Bond para agregar, modernizar, y construir nuevas facilidades necesarias para nuestro distrito. He visitado a muchos distritos escolares y veo que nuestras facilidades no están en las mismas condiciones. Necesitamos que nuestras escuelas se vean como un orgullo de nuestra comunidad y que estén fuera de peligro para nuestros estudiantes y familias. La intención de estos fondos es específicamente para eso. Ustedes pueden encontrar más detalles sobre la cantidad, cómo, y por qué apoyar en el sitio web: www.be.wednet.edu y luego haga clic en Bond 2019. Gracias.
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Mike Sargent, Community Member I recently had the pleasure of sitting on the Facilities Advisory Committee for the B-E School District. The committee reviewed all of the schools in the district to determine what improvements, additions and new facilities were needed. The expected growth in the District would require the School District to build either an $85,957,000 K-8 school or a $72,900,000 middle school sooner than later. The committee ultimately decided to recommend to the B-E School Board that they put a $98 million bond on the ballot. The purpose of the bond would be to upgrade several schools, improve security and to build a middle school. Several years ago, I sat on a committee assembled by the B-E School District that compared the pros and cons of K-8 schools versus middle schools. We also looked at a third option, which was to build a facility for an academy to supplement the seventh and eighth-grade students. The committee ultimately decided that middle schools were the best option. I was born and raised in Burlington and attended the K-8 program and graduated from B-EHS. My daughter also went through the K-8 program in Burlington and also graduated from B-EHS. I entered the committee meetings several years ago believing that the K-8 program was superior to the middle school program, and I didn’t think anyone could change my mind. Well, I did change my mind. I now believe that the way to provide our students with the best possible education is for the B-E School District to build a middle school! There were a number of positive attributes of a middle school that were highlighted in the meetings. A more equitable system, improved teacher collaboration, increased safety/security and many other factors. However, for me, there was one distinct advantage of a middle school and that was the curriculum. The superior curriculum provided by neighboring school districts such as Arlington, Mount Vernon, and Sedro Woolley is staggering. Edison Elementary School offers two electives; Digi Tools and STEM, the three neighboring school districts offer different combinations of the following programs in their middle schools; Art, Current Events, Music, World Culture, AVID, Orchestra, Drama, Spanish, Yearbook, Bilingual Education, STEM, Symphony, Band, Foods, PreEngineering, Technology, Choir, TechEd, and Home Living. Students from neighboring School Districts are entering and ultimately graduating from high school with an enormous academic advantage. When it comes time to vote on school bonds, taxes are always a consideration. My first question was, how will we pay for the $98 million projects? My taxes, like all property owners in the B-E School District, have increased in recent years. The good news is that due to recent legislative decisions and past bonds being retired, local education taxes will go down, even with the approval of the $98 million bond. In fact, our local education taxes will be cut almost in half (46%) in 2019. If the bond is approved in Feb 2019, then taxes will go up in 2020, but will still be 17% less than they are this year. I have spent many hours over the past several years researching, discussing, and debating the topic of middle schools versus K-8. My conclusion is that the best option for our students is for the community to approve a bond that will provide funding for the proposed facilities upgrades and to build a middle school.
Jenny Hill, Lucille Umbarger Teacher I teach 7th and 8th-grade math at Lucille Umbarger Elementary. From a purely academic standpoint, the students of B-E are placed at a competitive disadvantage compared to neighboring districts when it comes to the classes offered at the 7th and 8th-grade levels. A true middle school would ease scheduling and staffing issues and allow B-E to offer it’s 7th and 8th graders accelerated options in math, science, language arts, and social studies plus electives in a foreign language, and the fine arts. A true middle school would also allow for increased content area collaboration among teachers and give B-E students a consistent, equitable, and shared experience to prepare them for high school.
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Kali Howard , Community Member, Allen Parent As the parent of students in kindergarten and first grade, the President of the Allen School Booster Club, and a substitute teacher in the district, the proposed middle school bond issue is of great interest to me. After discussing it with the teachers and other parents, I believe it would be an excellent idea. A middle school would help children in the age range to transition both academically and socially and would have them better prepared to enter high school. They are no longer small children or elementary students, nor are they prepared to enter high school. A middle school would allow students to have a school focused on their particular social and academic development and growth. It would bring the children together as a community and help reduce some of the social segregation that occurs for them when they enter high school. I also believe that having the middle school age children in an elementary school is a disadvantage for their learning as the school is primarily focused on younger children. Thank you for your consideration of this very important issue for our children’s academic and social development. Bond Information nights: Friday, December 7, 2018, at 5:30 pm at the high school Thursday, November 8, 2018, at 7 pm at Bay View School For more parent meetings please see our website 'Bond 2019' Website: www.be.wednet.edu Twitter@b_eschools Facebook: Burlington-Edison School District
Kayleen Garcia, B-EHS Student I think the bond is necessary because it would allow us to improve many things in our school district. More space would be provided for students to have a better learning experience and an overall better environment while at school. The bond would allow students to receive the education they deserve and provide them with the resources they need in order to get the most out of it. I believe that the bond will be able to provide future middle school students with the STEM classes and extracurricular activities that I, as a middle schooler, would have found very helpful to be able to explore deeper into different academic areas I was interested in.
927 E. Fairhaven Ave Burlington, WA 98233
ECRWSS Postal Customer
A SPECIAL THANK YOU TO COMMITTEE MEMBERS Mary Allen Jon Aarstad Jeff Brown James Campbell Jose Cardona Aaron Darragh Jeff Drayer Kristen Ekstran Buck Evans Kayleen Garcia Kevin Gudgel Nolan Harron Heidi Herder
Jenny Hill Bryan Jones Christi Kinney K.C. Knudson Gloria Lemus Mendez Luis Lopez Don McMoran Mia Omdal Kelly Parson Chris Pearson Paul Pihl Kim Rawlins Dalila Rodriquez
Jim Sargent Mike Sargent Jennifer Sheahan-Lee Tamara Skeen Carrie Stewart Joe Stewart Taylor Swedberg Erica Tolf Arturo Vivanco Mike Welling Jenae Whitlock Sue Wright
Both Middle-Level Programming and the Facility Advisory Committee are represented on this list.
Mark Wees, Band Teacher For over 20 years the 7th and 8th graders have had to meet before their school day to participate in band and choir, and they have been bussed to their schools after band. Many students spend more time on the bus than they did playing their instruments or singing! It will be fantastic to have performing arts as part of our students’ regular school day, as it is in all other districts in our area.
Contact Information: Allen Elementary 17145 Cook Road, Bow, WA 98232 360-757-3352 Marsha Hanson, Principal Bay View Elementary 15241 Josh Wilson Road, Burlington, WA 98233 360-757-3322 Amy Reisner, Principal Edison Elementary 5801 Main Avenue, Bow, WA 98232, 360-757-3375 Amy Staudenraus, Principal Lucille Umbarger Elementary 820 S. Skagit Street, Burlington, WA 98233, 360-757-3366 Dr. Justin May, Principal; Kevin Johnson, Assistant Principal
West View Elementary 515 W. Victoria Avenue, Burlington, WA 98233 360-757-3391 Tamara Skeen, Principal Burlington-Edison High School/Burlington North 301 N. Burlington Blvd., Burlington, WA 98233, 360-757-4074 Todd Setterlund, Principal; James Campbell, Assistant Principal; Jeffrey Demorest, Assistant Principal Burlington-Edison School District 927 E. Fairhaven Avenue, Burlington, WA 98233, 360-757-3311 Laurel Browning, Superintendent Dr. Jeff Drayer, Assistant Superintendent
Website: www.be.wednet.edu Twitter @b_eschools Facebook: Burlington-Edison School District