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Carnation to get first traffic light City gives green light to free Entwistle signal
Valley’s Teachers of the Year keep things fun, relevant
Carnation will soon see its first four-way stoplight on Tolt Avenue, a major milestone for the city, its drivers and pedestrians. At its March 15 meeting, the Carnation City Council recommended awarding a contract for the installation of a traffic signal at the intersection of Tolt Avenue and Entwistle Street, plus a marked crosswalk with a flashing yellow light at the intersection of Tolt and West Morrison Street, to Totem Electric of Tacoma.
BY CAROL LADWIG
Mount Si girls golfers surprises in home jamboree Page 10
Lower Valley players offer up medical mayhem Page 8
INDEX OPINION 4 6 BUSINESS 10-11 SPORTS 12 PUZZLES 12 LEGAL NOTICES ON THE SCANNER 13 13-14 CLASSIFIEDS
It never seems to stop. In the halls, in class, even during Chris Blake’s prep period, students have questions for him. “And it’s kind of important,” says one boy, apologetically interrupting him. The math and science teacher is busy, but asks, “OK, what is it?” “West Virginia or Kentucky?” Blake can’t help himself. He tries to smother a grin as he points to the door, and says “OK, not now. Go.” He pauses, then says “I’m going Kentucky on that one, though.” “YES!” says the boy, and happily departs. It is March Madness at Chief Kanim Middle School, and Blake, a teacher and coach of football and basketball, is at the center of a flurry of boys trying to fill out their team brackets and follow the NCAA men’s basketball championships. He uses the school’s tournament mania to make his favorite subject, math, both fun and relevant to his students. Blake’s ability to make learning spill out of the classroom and into students’ lives is one reason he was named a Snoqualmie Valley Schools Foundation Teacher of the Year. It’s a quality he shares with fellow Teachers of the Year Sharon Piper at Opstad Elementary School and Kim Sales at Mount Si High School. Another thing the three teachers share is their motivation. “It’s the kids, “ said Blake, Chief Kanim’s sixth grade math and science teacher for all of his 15-year career. “They’re all very sweet,” said Piper who’s been at Opstad for 10 years, and teaching third grade for 15. “Like I tell them, ‘I learn way more from you
SEE LIGHT, 5
Carol Ladwig/Staff Photo
Photos of current and former students plaster the walls of Mount Si High School business teacher Kim Sales’ classroom, above. Below, Opstad Elementary’s Sharon Piper annually introduces third graders to the life cycle of fish. Both women are 2011 Valley Schools Foundation Teachers of the Year. guys than you do from me.’” “I get to have fun with 16- to 18 year-olds every single day, and my job is to make learning relevant, and as a result, fun for them,” said Kim Sales.
Benefits, prayers for Japan relief
Sales teaches law and business at Mount Si, and oversees the operation of a functioning credit union, the Wildcat Branch of Sno-Falls Credit Union, open in the school commons daily for all three lunch periods. Students at the branch are trained as tellers, and they use the skills to complete up to 10 transactions per lunch period, manage cash, and reconcile
Local relief efforts for disasterstruck Japan are taking place on two levels, spiritual and physical. Responding to the disaster, Pastor Lee Hartmann of Fall City United Methodist Church organized a World Prayers gathering Thursday, March 17, for people of all faiths. For those who wanted to contribute in a tangible way, she and Pastors Phil Harrington of the Snoqualmie United Methodist Church directed people to the United Methodist Committee on Relief ’s website, new. gbgm-umc.org/umcor.
SEE TEACHERS, 2
SEE JAPAN, 5
Kim Sales
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2 • March 23, 2011 • Snoqualmie Valley Record
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TEACHERS FROM 1
Carol Ladwig/Staff Photo
Surrounding himself with cardboard cut-outs, Chief Kanim Middle School’s Teacher of the Year Chris Blake shaped his room the way his original, inspiring sixth grade teacher and coach decorated his own.
“The kids love it,” she says, “It’s a skill that they have now.” Skills and schedules are at the heart of Sales’ teaching. Her classes are in the Career and Technical Education program, which used to be known as vocational classes. While others might have looked down on those classes, she never did. “It’s not about college or not college, it’s about skills,” she said. “It’s about empowering and really impacting our students.” To do that in her usually full classrooms, Sales focuses on organization. “If you want to run an effective classroom, where you are
affecting student learning 50 to 55 minutes out of 55 minutes, you better—a teacher better have basically a minuteby-minute plan for each class that they’re doing.”
Chris Blake Blake almost laughed when he learned of the award. “I thought it was a joke!” he said, but “when we had our ceremony, they read some of the (nomination) letters from students and parents... and I realized, I have a good gig here, I have a good relationship with the kids, and I’ve been very lucky. It made me feel very lucky, very blessed to be where I’m at.” It was his own middle school experience in Chewelah, Wash., that made him start
thinking about teaching some day— but only as a backup plan. He already knew what he wanted to do. “In sixth grade? I was shortstop for the Yankees,” he said. His sixth grade teacher was also his freshman baseball coach, later an assistant principal at Chief Kanim, and ultimately one of Blake’s inspirations to teach. “My year in sixth grade was his first year in teaching, and he had the room like this...” he gestures around the classroom, papered with posters and signs, dotted with cardboard cutouts, and a couch. “It was fun... he made learning fun for me.” Blake takes that approach in teaching math and science to his sixth graders, too. “I’m
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doing my best to get them excited about it, and at least bust their butts for their sixth grade career,” he said. “I try to have a lot of energy, I try to make it as fun as I can, we play math games to get motivated...” He demonstrates one of the tools he uses, an ActivExpressions device that transfers student answers to a television screen. “They think they’re playing a game, but they’re actually doing math,” he said. He loves teaching sixth grade, which is such a formative year for students. He sees them go through a lot of changes, and he appreciates the opportunity he’s been given to shape their lives. “Seeing them happy and enjoying school makes me feel like I’m doing something right.” he said. “If the Yankees call me, though...”
Sharon Piper
Piper has a couple of confessions to make. The first is “the only reason I got this (Teacher of the Year award) was because of Marianne Bradburn.... She should have gotten it with me!” Bradburn, Piper said, has been “awesome” and invaluable as a teaching and planning partner over the years. “We decided it was hard to teach on the fly,” Piper explained, and so about four years ago, they started meeting on Fridays to plan the next week’s lessons. It took hours. “We have it written down, we’re going to teach this page, and we really push each other to ask why we’re teaching it, what’s the point of teaching it, what do we want the kids to learn?” she said. An important lesson that Piper wants all students to learn is about discrimination. It’s her favorite unit to teach but one of the most difficult. “All the kids hear that,” she says, reading from a huge red sign on her desk, “What’s essential is invisible to the eye.” Learning that, though, means learning about all the ways people can discriminate against each other. Piper spends two days each year on the famed Blue Eyes Brown Eyes experiment by Jane Elliott, in which a third grade class learns prejudice against their classmates based on eye color. Her experiment is much shorter and tamer, since brown-eyed students only ignored their blue-eyed classmates, and viceversa, but just as hard on students and teacher. Piper, Blake, and Sales were all nominated by colleagues, parents, and students for excellence in education and dedication to students. • The Valley Schools Foundation hosts a public luncheon recognizing Teachers of the Year 11:30 a.m. Thursday, March 24, at TPC Snoqualmie Ridge.