January 2011

I am a parent in the Highline School District and I am appalled at the state Legislature for their budget cuts. It's their job to make sure our school districts have the money they need to operate.

Sadly, the Highline School District has had to cut $14.5 million from their budget and will probably have to cut more next year. But we can do our part and vote for the Replacement of Expiring Educational Programs and Operation Levy by Feb. 8th.

I'm getting sick of seeing our children's education being pushed to the back burner and watching as good teachers are laid off due to budget cuts every year. We need to keep our classroom sizes as small as possible, and make sure our kids have access to classes like music, art, choir, and other activities that benefit them throughout their entire life long after they've graduated.

It seems like the state doesn't care about those things.

It's up to us to pass this levy and make sure our children grow up not just learning reading, writing, and arithmetic. Please support our teachers, our schools, and our children by voting yes by February 8th.

Teal Fairman
Burien

The latest media merger (Comcast and NBC) confirms an alarming trend to centralize our news.

Thank goodness we have the Robinson group of newspapers! Locally owned, these papers reflect what our community is doing. The publishing decisions are made locally, not by some far-flung, long distance decision maker who still thinks we in the West live in covered wagons!

Go Ballard News-Tribune, West Seattle Herald-White Center News and Highline Times-Des Moines News-SeaTac News!

We are far better off having "hometown" ownership such as the Robinson Newspapers.

Bill Wippel
Tape Ministries NW

An 81 year-old Burien woman was pronounced dead at Harborview Medical Center on Jan. 28 after she was involved in an automobile accident.
The accident happened about 1 p.m. at South 160th Street and the Ambaum Cutoff South in Burien.
A 61 year-old Des Moines woman was driving a 1992 Dodge Dakota pick-up eastbound on S. 160th. Investigating detectives believe she went through a red light and her vehicle hit a 1994 Pontiac Bonneville that was northbound on the Ambaum Cutoff.
After the initial impact, the Bonneville continued northbound across S. 160th and struck another vehicle facing southbound. That driver was taken to Highline Medical Center with minor injuries.
The driver of the Bonneville was taken to Harborview where she subsequently died. The driver of the Dodge was admitted in serious condition.

I wish to register a protest that our public school, Highline Community College asked Bill Ayers to speak.
Here are the facts that make me opposed to his speaking to our students:

William Charles "Bill" Ayers is an American elementary education theorist and a former leader in the movement that opposed U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. He is known for his 1960s activism as well as his current work in education reform, curriculum, and instruction. In 1969 he co-founded the Weather Underground, a self-described communist revolutionary group that conducted a campaign of bombing public buildings during the 1960s and 1970s, motivated by U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. He is married to Bernardine Dohrn, who was a leader in the Weather organization.

He is currently involved in work that seeks to tear down our constitutional republic. He was not a fit speaker!

Barbara Levich
Burien

In these continuing hard economic times, it is important that we think very carefully about how we spend our money.

There is no more important investment in our future than education for our community's children, especially in an increasingly competitive world.

That brings us to the Highline School District's education programs renewal levy. Voters should have received their ballots in the mail by now. The ballots must be returned in this mail-only election by Tuesday, Feb. 8.

Sadly, the state does not truly fund the kind of basic education our kids need now. About 80 percent of the Highline levy would go to pay teachers and support staff. The rest will go for textbooks, bus transportation and operating schools.

This is a replacement for the levy that expires this year. The expiring levy raised $140 million over four years. This one is a $188 million four-year levy.

When the state Legislature slashed basic education last year, lawmakers allowed local districts to ask their communities for more money to make up a small portion of the cuts.

Starting Saturday, Feb. 5, King County Metro Transit is updating its bus service. This includes routing and bus stop changes for approximately two dozen bus routes from various areas of the county that pass through downtown Seattle.

The downtown changes are designed to keep people moving during the long-term construction along the Seattle waterfront and SODO area.

Here are the highlights of the February changes for bus riders in the Highline area:
Select trips will be deleted on routes 21, 23 and 131. Check the blue timetables or online Trip Planner for details.

One trip on Route 192 that currently leaves downtown Seattle at 5:34 p.m. will be deleted.
In downtown Seattle, there are bus routes shifting from First Avenue to Third Avenue; from Third Avenue to Second/Fourth avenues; and new bus stop locations on Third Avenue for several routes - some of which could affect local routes traveling into downtown.

Route 99 will loop to travel north on First Avenue and south on Alaskan Way in Seattle, and buses will no longer be "wrapped" to look like the old waterfront streetcars.

Highline Medical Center Foundation has welcomed Susan Bean as its new executive director responsible for leading the foundation's philanthropic activities with special events, planned giving programs, annual giving programs and sponsorships.

The foundation raises money for health care services and facilities in the Highline communities of Burien, Des Moines, Federal Way, Normandy Park, SeaTac, Tukwila, West Seattle and White Center.

It's projects are entirely supported by charitable contributions that are used to assist Highline Medical Center to build new facilities, remodel old ones, purchase new equipment, provide health related services to the community and to assist those who need outpatient care, but lack the resources to afford it.

Bean has extensive experience in leading non-profit foundations and expert knowledge of the Northwest's philanthropic community.

The Highline School District will hold a community meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 8 from 6-7:30 p.m. at district headquarters (ERAC), 15675 Ambaum Blvd. S.W. to discuss the district's K-6 math program.

The district undertook a "listening tour" of teachers, principals, parents and community members to examine its elementary math program. Results of the tour were announced at the district's board meeting on Jan. 26.

Deputy Superintendent Carla Jackson termed the tour "a thoughtful process."

Participants overwhelming criticized the district's current "Investigations" math curriculum.

According to staffers from Education First Consulting, the participants praised the curriculum's focus on concepts and problem solving. But they worried that the program does not align with new more rigorous standards.

They also reported that professional development for teachers was not intensive enough and asked for more time for teachers to collaborate.

Am elementary-school father in the audience complained that he was unable to help his child with math homework.

"Math is being taught backwards, he said. "The kids don't know the basics."

Nicole Flynn, a science teacher at Odyssey - The Essential School on the Tyee High campus in SeaTac, has been chosen as a Fellow in the 2010 NSTA New Science Teacher Academy.

The National Science Teachers Association (NSTA), the largest professional organization in the world, promotes excellence and innovation in science teaching and learning, in partnership with Astellas Pharma US, Inc. ("Astellas"); Bayer Corporation; and ServiceMaster.,

Flynn will participate in a year-long professional development program designed to help promote quality science teaching, enhance teacher confidence and classroom excellence and improve teacher content knowledge.

"Each of the Fellows has conveyed a strong desire to develop their skills as teachers so that they can better foster their students' interest in science," said NSTA Executive Director Francis Eberle. "We are very proud of this year's group of Fellows and are grateful for their commitment to science education and to their students."

Former Burien mayor Sally Nelson has been appointed by the King County Council to help redraw council districts based on 2010 Census data.

Nelson is a long-time civic leader in south King County. She helped lead the effort to incorporate the city of Burien, was elected as a charter member of the Burien City Council, was the city's first deputy mayor, and later served two years as mayor.

Three other people were picked by the council to serve with Nelson.

Rod Dembowski is a partner at the Seattle-based law firm Foster Pepper. He has served as a special deputy prosecuting attorney for King, Pierce and Island counties.

John Jensen is the president of Jensen Roofing Company, a locally owned and operated business founded in 1988. He was a member of the 2007-2008 King County Charter Review Commission.

Sally Poliak serves as the CEO and president of The Poliak Group, a strategic communications and public affairs advocacy firm. She was a member of the 1991 King County Districting Committee.

State law and the county charter require King County to redraw council district boundaries using the most recent U.S. Census data.