Schools FYI

Published 9:00 pm Monday, November 14, 2005

Weston High School (Arlington)

“There is a lot of one-on-one help from the teachers. We’re getting ready to move (into a new school building). I’m getting excited about the move.”

Corey Kirchner,

11th grade

For whom did the bell toll? Lincoln students

A story in the Nov. 7 Herald about historic Trafton Elementary School where students still pull on a bell rope to call classmates in from recess brought back fond memories for Dan Grewe.

Grewe, 84, attended Lincoln School in Arlington in the early 1930s and remembers the day he was determined to ring the school’s bell even though the duty was assigned to another boy that day.

The other boy didn’t budge.

“I jumped up and grabbed the rope,” Grewe remembers with a chuckle. “I swung out over the stairs and pulled the bell upside down.”

A janitor had to be rounded up to turn it right side up, but students got a longer recess that day.

Art show tonight for hurricane victims

Harbour Pointe Middle School students will host an art show from 6:30 to 8 tonight before sending their watercolor paintings to Louisiana students affected by Hurricane Katrina.

The art students wrote messages on the mat board surrounding the paintings, offering words of encouragement and explaining their work.

The local students created 120 watercolor paintings in bright, bold colors. Many paintings will be in display cases throughout the school after the show until Thanksgiving break.

The school is at 5000 Harbour Pointe Blvd., Mukilteo.

Lake Stevens will offer two levy requests

Voters in Lake Stevens School District in February will weigh two tax requests.

A one-year transportation vehicle levy would raise $1.2 million to allow the district to buy 16 buses to replace aging ones and to serve the new junior high school. The cost would be 38 cents per $1,000 of assessed valuation, or $76 a year for the owner of a $200,000 home.

The other is a four-year maintenance and operations levy to replace one that is expiring. The levy funds 15 percent of the district’s operating budget.

That levy would raise $9.9 million its first year to $12.5 million its fourth year. The estimated rate each year would be $3.14 per $1,000 of assessed valuation, or $628 per year for a $200,000 home.

If both levies are approved, the total tax rate would go up by less than 50 cents the first year, falling 38 cents after the one-year bus levy would expire.

For more information, visit www.lkstevens.wednet.edu.

Monroe rejects PTO offer to hire lab aide

The Monroe School Board in a split vote rejected a parent group’s offer to pay for a computer lab aide at Maltby Elementary School.

The Maltby Elementary PTO proposed paying $11,914 in benefits and salaries to hire a part-time aide to help supervise students in the lab.

Board president Tom MacIntyre and member Marykaye Sieverson voted in favor of the grant. Dissenting were board vice president Dean Adams and members Greg Accetturo and Sue Magruder, who worried about setting a precedent.

This was the first time a local parent group offered to pay for an employee, district spokeswoman Rosemary O’Neil said.