News & Information

Bellingham School District students and staff from Birchwood Elementary School, Fairhaven Middle School, and Bellingham and Sehome high schools have recently competed and been recognized for their achievements.

Birchwood School Garden Group Awarded $5,000 Grant from Lowes
The school garden group at Birchwood Elementary School recently received a 2009-10 Lowe’s Toolbox for Education grant from the Lowe’s Charitable and Educational Foundation. The grant money will help purchase materials for a greenhouse, an outdoor covered area, an irrigation system, work tables, cold frames, a worm bin system, a three-part compost system and needed tools and wheelbarrows. All labor will be donated by volunteers.

Two Teachers Receive Award for Instructional Workshops
Sehome High School Spanish teacher Janae Hodge and Fairhaven Middle School Principal Deirdre O’Neill received the Washington Association for Language Teaching (WALFT) Creative Innovation Certificate for their instructional workshops with World Language Teachers in the Pacific Northwest. The award is given based on creative means for teaching second language conversation;  inventive ideas for instructing students in culture and multi-cultural awareness; or new and effective methods for developing second language reading and writing skills. Hodge and O’Neill will be honored at an awards luncheon during the WALFT fall conference at SeaTac.

Bellingham High Art Teacher Receives Tribute Award
Bellingham High School art teacher Paul Berg has been selected to receive the Washington Art Education Association (WAEA) Tribute Award on May 21. The award will be presented as part of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction’s Annual High School Art Show Awards program in Olympia. This is highest award given by the WAEA. Bellingham High has two student art works in the show by senior Rashida K. Pryor and junior Cassidy Paul.

Bellingham High Teacher Named Siemens STEM Fellow
Bellingham High School teacher Paul Clement was among 50 educators nationwide recently selected as a 2010-2011 Siemens STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) Fellow and is invited to attend the Siemens STEM Institute in Washington, DC. The institute is an all expense-paid, immersive, week-long professional development experience hosted at the world headquarters of Discovery Communications,  featuring guest speakers and interactive field trips to leading science and research institutions. 

Bellingham and Sehome High Students Win Gates Millennium Scholar Award
Bellingham High School senior Selina Doran and Sehome High School senior Michelle Lam recently won the Gates Millennium Scholar Award.  The scholarship pays for the students to attend a private or public school anywhere in the United States and Gates will pay up to 10 years for the student’s education over any estimated family contributions and grants. Doran will be attending Westmont College in Santa Barbara and Lam will be attending Parsons The New School for Design in New York City.

Sehome High Teacher Wins Washington Spanish Teacher of the Year
Sehome High School Spanish teacher Katie Gómez recently won the Washington Association Language Teaching Teacher of the Year for 2010. Gómez has mentored many student interns and teachers throughout her career and hosts Western Washington University students in her class each spring. She is a leading collaborator in the school’s world language department and part of an enhancing education through technology grant at Sehome.

Sehome Spanish Students Attain National Recognition at National Spanish Examinations
Sehome High School Spanish students participated in the 2010 National Spanish Examinations and earned a total of 7 gold medals, 8 silver medals, 15 bronze medals and 34 honorable mentions in levels one through four.

Gold medal participants — Level 4: Louise Highleyman, Molly LeCompte, Evan Madill and William Giller; Level 3: Caitlin Delahunt, Matt Sloane and Evan Johnson.
Silver medal participants — Level 4: Owen Chambers; Level 3: Taylor Brown, Forrest Laine and Teresa Rose Osborne; Level 2: Ian Earle, Katelin Taylor and Charles Linneman; Level 1: Meika Barclay.
Bronze medal participants — Level 4: Ryan Newell; Level 3: Katie Johnson, Bjorn Thorpe and Sheldon Dudas; Level 2: Tiffany Chou, Katherine Hannah, Miranda Hewlett, Liam Horner, Lauren Pittis and Elisabeth Larson; Level 1:  Heron Paulson-Quick, Morgan Kavanaugh, Elsa Balton, Meerim Ruslanova and Darya Yesipova.
Honorable mentions —  Level 4: Glen Marquardt and Brailey Murray-Kraft;  Level 3: Kevin Karcher, William Topp, Anthony Mallory, Isaac Poulson, Katherine Davis, Matthew Goebel, Alex Knops, Geordie Marriner, Payton Weidenbacher and Brian Willson; Level 2: Cheyenne Bell, Amelia Black, Emma Crabo, Amy Han, Lauren Higman, Maya Hunger, Michael Mallory, Katherine Mullen, Erik Poulin, Jaden Duffy and Janice Liang;  Level 1: Daniel Karcher, Raeanne Hemmen, Sophia Carbone, Hanna Tarleton, Andrea Roy, Bohdan Vorozhtsov, Amelia Bryan, Russel Goebel, Johann Lahud-Zahner, Natalie Anderson and Kristin Chalmers.

Sehome High Senior Places First in State Math Competition
Sehome High School senior Matt Junttila placed first in the Knowdown at the Washington State Mathematics Council Competition in Yakima April 17. Junttila competes on a team composed of Sehome and Bellingham high school students.

Fairhaven Teacher Is Candidate for National Middle School Association Board
Fairhaven Middle School teacher Stephanie Strow is a candidate for teacher trustee to represent the North and West regions for the National Middle School Association (NMSA) Board of Directors. As a member of the board, Strow would aid in the development of policies, procedures and regulations for the operation of the association, monitor the association’s financial health, programs and overall performance, and provide the executive director with the resources to meet the mission, goals and objectives.