Eastlake football is firing on all cylinders for 2011 season
August 30, 2011
If Eastlake football fans are wondering what the Wolves will do after losing star running back Kyle Lappano to graduation, it seems they don’t have much to worry about this fall.
Not only is the Eastlake varsity squad returning a full front of big and quick linemen, it’s also looking to take advantage of a new weapon in Ryan Lewis.
The senior running back was clocked at a 4.33-second 40-yard dash this summer, according to coaches.
Eastlake’s Kepa Hughes runs blocking drills during a pre-season practice Aug. 25. Coach Gene Dales expexts him to be a force on the line this year. Photo by Christopher Huber
Skyline football looks for another run at the state title
August 30, 2011
It didn’t take long for the Skyline Spartans football team to bounce back from defeat at the 2010 state 4A title game. From players’ reactions after the final buzzer sounded, the loss to Ferris stung.
Ultimately, it inspired the team to start preparing for the 2011 season earlier than ever. Players began optional workouts in January instead of March. And coupled with the handful of team and 7-on-7 camps they attended, the Spartans seemed to exude as much confidence as ever during late August practices. That’s despite losing Kasen Williams, considered by many national publications to be last year’s top wide receiver prospect in the nation.
Max Browne, Skyline High Schoo junior quarterback, tossed the ball during a play at practice Aug. 15. Photo by Christopher Huber
Calendar August 31
August 30, 2011
The documentary file “Painted Life” the story of Henk Pander as seen through the lens of his son, Jacob, will be shown at 1 p.m. Sept. 10 at City Hall.
State adopts changes to vehicle emission testing, exempts some new vehicles
August 30, 2011
The owners of some vehicles may no longer need to undergo emission testing after July 2012, as the state Department of Ecology prepares to enact rule changes to the testing program.
The state requires certain vehicles in King County and other densely populated areas to undergo emission tests to reduce air pollution.
Under the rule change required by the Legislature and due to go into effect next summer, all 2009 and newer model year vehicles do not require testing.
In addition, additional businesses may be authorized to conduct tests. The rule change also eliminates some emission tests.
The measure calls for the same standards to be used for all 1995 model year and older gasoline vehicles. The rule change exempts light-duty diesel vehicles from testing and tightens test standards for heavy-duty diesel vehicles. The measure nixes the gas cap test and dynamometer testing.
Department of Ecology officials posted the complete rule and supporting documents on the agency’s air quality website. The agency announced the impending rule change Thursday.
The agency accepted public comments on the proposal in March and held a public hearing on proposed changes in Federal Way.
Besides King County, vehicles in Clark, Pierce, Snohomish and Spokane counties undergo emission tests.
If a vehicle needs to undergo the test, the owner receives a reminder inside his or her tab renewal notice or email reminder reading, “This vehicle must pass a Washington emission inspection.” Then, the vehicle must be tested before he or she can renew the tabs.
Read the complete vehicle emission testing rule and supporting documents at the state Department of Ecology’s air quality website, www.ecy.wa.gov/laws-rules/activity/wac173422A.html.
New coach hopes to rev up Eastside Catholic football
August 30, 2011
Implementing your own system into a football program as a first-year coach takes time. But new Eastside Catholic High School head coach Jeremy Thielbahr couldn’t be more energized about the 2011 football season.
The former University of Idaho running backs coach has been on the job in Sammamish for a few months, and he seems to be making headway among a team that looks eager to get back to contention for the playoffs.
Read more
Sammamish’s Shoreline Master Plan gets state approval
August 29, 2011
New: Aug. 29, 1:32 p.m.
After hundreds of hours of public meetings dating back to 2006, Sammamish has a new set of regulations on development around the shorelines of Pine and Beaver lakes and Lake Sammamish.
Washington State Department of Ecology officials approved the city’s Shoreline Master Plan Aug. 17, following a few last-minute City Council tweaks to a compromise hammered out by city and Ecology staff. Ecology shoreline planner Geoff Tallent said the law goes into effect Aug. 31 and can be appealed in the following 60 days. Read more
Sahalee man pulls neighbor from burning building
August 25, 2011
A Sammamish man may very well have saved his elderly neighbor’s life by rushing into the man’s burning home and carrying him out over his shoulder Wednesday evening.
Firefighters are calling Sahalee resident Greg Barton a hero for rushing to his neighbor’s rescue as flames rapidly spread throughout the home. The 87-year-old resident was rushed to Harborview Medical Center, where he was being treated Thursday for second-degree burns to his head and smoke inhalation. A Harborview spokeswoman said the man is in serious condition in the intensive care unit, but had been improving over the course of the day. Read more
Tree stumps don final pair of socks for fall
August 25, 2011
The infamous tree stumps along 228th Avenue Southeast don their final "pair" of socks just in time for fall.
NEW 1:20 p.m., Aug. 25
Sammamish’s infamous tree stumps were given their last pair of socks Aug. 21.
Artists Suzanne Tidwell and Beth Newfield put up the final installment of their tree sock project – a series of colorful stockings that cover several bare stumps that sit next to 228th Avenue in front of Eastlake High School.
Tidwell said she was excited to see the project to fruition.
“I wanted to see it through to the end,” Tidwell said. “I’m thankful that the city gave us the extra time it took to finish.”
City officials had cut the dying trees down to nubs two years ago under the assumption that they could be carved into some sort of sculpture or totem pole. When city officials balked at the price tag of such a project, Tidwell and Newfield and friends spent close to $1,500 on synthetic yarn and took to constructing colorful covers for the barren stumps. Read more
Construction projects in Issaquah and Lake Washington school districts will modernize schools
August 23, 2011
NEW 4:25 p.m., Aug. 23
Voters from both of Sammamish’s school districts have approved bonds in recent years to upgrade school facilities.
The big project on the plateau is the addition at Eastlake. A two-story classroom wing and auxiliary gym are being added to accommodate next year’s influx of ninth graders to the school.
The project began work over the summer and is expected to be complete in time for the 2012-13 school year.
Otherwise, while the city has seen new schools, such as Creekside and Rachel Carson elementaries open in the past few years, most of the major projects are taking place outside of Sammamish right now.
Lake Washington district
The big news in the Lake Washington district is the construction of a new science, technology engineering and math (STEM) secondary school.
The building is set to go up just north of Sammamish on state Route 202, near Alcott Elementary. The district is hip-deep in the permitting process, and expects to have the new building open in time for the 2012-2013 school year.
• An addition to Redmond High School will make the school 30,000 square feet bigger. Construction began over the summer.
• Construction wrapped up at Lake Washington High School/Northstar Junior High, Finn Hill Junior High/Environmental and Adventure School and Muir Elementary. Students are expected to move back in this school year.
• Construction projects at Keller Elementary and Sandburg Elementary should be done by the start of the next school year.
• Projects at Rose Hill Junior High/Stella Schola Middle School, Bell and Rush elementaries and the International Community School are proceeding and should wrap up at various times in 2013.
Issaquah district
• Planners slated Maywood Middle School in Renton for a modernization and expansion project. According to the latest construction update from the district this month, Maywood’s old administration/commons area and counseling offices are gone, with construction of replacement facilities under way. Demolition of the parking lots and sidewalks are nearing completion with rebuilding scheduled to already have started. Grading of new parking areas has begun.
• Also in Renton, Briarwood Elementary School was slated for a complete replacement. A new building is planned right next to the existing structure, Niegowski said.
The Briarwood project still is in its beginning stages, though the school’s former parking lot is now part of the construction zone. A new, temporary lot for staff and parents was built on the east side of the school.
Also affecting how students will come and go from the school, the driveway in front of Briarwood was renovated and now is intended for drop off and pick up of students only.
On another front, the construction has taken over the school’s former baseball field and what was known as the “Big Toy” area. Some of the play equipment was moved and will be available to students this year. Briarwood’s new building is slated to open in fall 2012.
• Liberty High School is set to receive a $19 million addition and modernization. The schedule had new science labs built first in summer of last year. Site preparation and some demolition was to last through early this year, when construction was launched on a new performing arts center. Overall work is thought to continue through summer 2012.
• Work also continues on a modernization project at Challenger Elementary in Issaquah. The former library and staff lounge is gone with construction of the renovated facilities under way. The school’s parking lot and pick-up/drop-off area is about to be realigned.
• Issaquah High School was slated to receive a complete rebuilding at a cost of $94.9 million. Classroom and core areas were ready by fall 2010, with completion of the remaining work done by this fall.
Contractors presently are finishing up cleaning and working on final punch lists on the high school project. The school’s new performing arts center should be mostly up and running in time for the start of school, though officials warn installation of a few items may have to await delivery before completion.
Outside the building, grinding and repaving was slated to begin on a widened Second Avenue the week of Aug. 15. Work is also proceeding on the school’s new athletic stadium. Turf is in place and workers are installing end zone letters and logos.
• Odds and ends: Portable classrooms are in place at Liberty, Apollo Elementary in Renton and Issaquah Valley Elementary in Issaquah. Portables also are on their way to Newcastle Elementary in Newcastle. In Issaquah, at Endeavour Elementary, workers are proceeding with replacing the roof and skylights.
Outside of schools, installation is set to begin shortly on new bus lifts for the district transportation center. Editor Ari Cetron contributed to this story.
Tom Corrigan: 392-6434, ext. 241, or tcorrigan@isspress.com. Comment on this story at www.SammamishReview.com.
Back to School: Language lessons
August 23, 2011
NEW 4:10 p.m., Aug. 23
School districts strive to keep foreign language courses available amid shrinking budgets
On almost an annual basis, Tammy Haldeman has had to teach two levels of Japanese language students during the same class period at Skyline High School.
Last school year, she had to pick between teaching a split class of 44 students or make two separate periods out of it. Ultimately she had to keep the group together and teach two levels of Japanese, she said, because one class would not be large enough to warrant creating another class period.
She is able to make do, and it ends up working out alright, she said, but the students in those classes lose out on the closer attention they might otherwise receive in a typical language class with one level.
“You’re more like a facilitator of their learning with that,” Haldeman said.“You have to have highly motivated kids in those classes.”
Haldeman’s situation isn’t unique. Teachers and school administrators have to use the resources available. But due to non-existent class-size-reduction funding and teacher shortages in some languages, foreign language programs around the Issaquah and Lake Washington school districts are facing challenges similar to those in the arts and other elective programs.
Even so, district officials said they know the benefits to studying a foreign language early and have worked to provide options for students as early as eighth grade.
In addition to in-house offerings at Pine Lake and Beaver Lake middle schools and Inglewood Junior High School, some elementary school students in both districts have options through PTA-sponsored after-school language programs, too.
“You are very limited in what you can pack in during that six-hour day. It forces you to prioritize,” said Ron Thiele, Issaquah School District’s associate superintendent. “Even if you had the student interest; even if you could get the teachers, you still have to confront that issue, of ‘what am I willing to stop offering.’ Those become really dicey conversations.”
Starting in middle school
Both school districts offer accredited foreign language classes starting in eighth grade. Inglewood students can take Spanish or French starting in eighth grade. Students at every Issaquah School District middle school can take Spanish, but only those at Issaquah Middle School and Maywood Middle School have an option for French, according to Sara Niegowski, the district’s communications director.
Stella Scholla, a Lake Washington magnet school, offers Latin coursework for seventh- and eighth-graders. And in an effort to streamline graduation requirements for college entry standards, the Lake Washington School Board, at its June 20 meeting, voted to require all students to take two years of one foreign language.
It’s the sixth district in the state to require two years and the seventh overall to institute a foreign language requirement (one district requires one year).
“We wanted to align our high school graduation requirements to ensure our students were prepared and eligible to enter college,” said Traci Pierce, Lake Washington’s deputy superintendent of instructional services.
In Sammamish schools, the new requirement will first apply to incoming Eastlake ninth-graders in fall of 2012, according to Kathryn Reith, the district’s communications director.
Eastside Catholic Middle School offers Spanish starting in seventh grade. Once in high school, students there can take French or Spanish levels one through four, according to the school’s curriculum webpage.
Options in high school
All students at Eastlake and Skyline have the option to take Spanish and French. Skyline also offers Japanese, and a group of students is working to get Mandarin Chinese added to the course offerings list.
Pierce noted the Lake Washington’s desire to offer as many choices as possible for students. It becomes a matter of staffing the position, though.
“There is generalized interest in Mandrin,” she said.
The idea of offering foreign language instruction at the elementary level has become a difficult area to address, Thiele said.
Total immersion
While schools in Burlington and Seattle, as well as many others across the nation, have waded into the waters of offering language immersion programs starting in the first grade, he said Issaquah considers it one of those great ideas that needs more student and parent interest combined with an abundance of bilingual, certified Washington teachers who also know how to teach all subject areas well. One problem, among others, is not enough native Spanish (or another foreign language) speakers at any one school.
“We looked into Spanish immersion a few years back,” Thiele said. “The problem I had was, I understand the immersion, but you need about half the kids in the class (to) be Spanish speaking and half would be English speaking.”
In order for an elementary school to offer a sustainable language immersion program, it has to fill a pipeline of teachers in each grade level.
“I think there’s a reason not a lot of (school districts) do it. It’s harder than anyone thinks. For us, we’re still a relatively homogenous population,” he said. “It’s not that we’re not interested in doing that. If it’s something that we can make happen, let’s do it.”
As principal of Issaquah Middle School in 2002, Thiele, who has a background in Mandrin studies, actually did implement a Japanese language program for one period per day. Within two years, they dropped the program due to lack of student interest.
“I could never get more than 17 kids per class,” Thiele said. “I just couldn’t keep the numbers. There has to be a certain amount of student interest. They’re not forced to take Japanese class.”
Spanish and French are simply more popular still, despite efforts, for example, by Skyline students to get Chinese on the course offerings list. And while other elective subjects like the arts and physical education diminish with the budgets, language classes still remain fairly robust at the high school level, he said.
That has a lot to do with students seeking to fulfill college entrance requirements — neither the district nor the state requires students to complete foreign language coursework.
“It wouldn’t surprise me that it is (growing),” Thiele said. “As I recall over 90 percent (of students) meet the two-years of language requirement upon graduating.”
While school districts have to strike a balance between maintaining a variety of elective course offerings for middle and high schoolers, foreign language teachers have the freedom to organize language immersion trips or activities to help their students deepen their understanding and experience in the culture and language.
These are offered completely independent from the school and tend to happen whenever teachers can get enough students and parents committed to travel, teachers from Skyline and Issaquah said.
Haldeman estimated that roughly one group of Skyline students takes a trip or attends an immersion activity each year, whether that’s during winter break, spring break or over the summer.
“Usually I notice that kids’ interest peaks,” Haldeman said. “It really solidifies their interest.”
Haldeman said she has taken her students to Japan before, but they often opt to attend the two-day full-immersion camp in Seattle. They learn the ins and outs of the culture and compete in speaking exercises.
“They get really excited about doing that,” she said.
Whether students take a trip or not, some teachers in the district supplement the traditional curriculum — standard verb conjugations and memorizing grammar rules — with methods such as Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling (TPRS). It promotes more creativity and conversation among classmates and focuses less on the teacher simply lecturing.
Haldeman said it is proven effective but, due to ever-increasing workload and requirements, it’s difficult to consistently incorporate into everyday instruction. She, like many, chooses to teach only in Japanese in her classes from second-year and up.
“My advanced classes are not allowed to speak in English at all,” Haldeman said.
While schools across the country have proven that learning a second language earlier and through new methods leads to higher test results, among other things, a variety of factors continue to limit Issaquah and other districts in what they can offer students. In the end it’s all a big balancing act, Thiele said.
“There’s educational value with learning a foreign language,” Thiele said. “But there’s also educational value in learning science or art.”
Reporter Christopher Huber can be reached at 392-6434, ext. 242, or chuber@isspress.com. Comment on this story at www.SammamishReview.com.
