School closures
Children will bounce back from closures
The citizens committee of Shoreline schools has said that the gangrene of financial disaster requires amputation. We mourn the expected loss. There is a litany of school closures of the past: Ronald, Richmond Beach, Hillwood, Cromwell Park, Paramount Park, Meridian, Cedarbrook, Aldercrest, Horizon View, Morgan, (old) Kellogg, Cordell Hull, Butler Junior High and beloved Shoreline High School.
Children are resilient. Each new year they attend a new classroom with new classmates and a new teacher. New relationships will be forged which build character. It is not the building. Learning can take place in classrooms with no desks and only benches for the students and blackboards for the teacher. Learning is the dynamic between the teacher and the student and the subject matter.
As a child and “Army Brat,” I attended eight schools in 12 years. Many states, not neighborhoods or communities as Shoreline. Plus, schools at German Army Posts with students I had never met. The size of the schools ranged from a rural school of 36 for all twelve grades to a school with 2,700 students and one way halls and stairs for passing between classes.
As a parent, I recommend a page from my mother’s handbook. Each move was an opportunity to expand our horizons in understanding our world. You, as a parent, can give your children the gift of a positive outlook and the curiosity of exploring new experiences.
The children will succeed and after all that is our mutual goal for their educational experience. We mourn the expected loss. We fear the expected changes. Change can be frightening, but we can make the transition a positive experience.
La Nita Jordan Wacker
Shoreline
Board meeting causes deja vu of pre-Iraq War
Last night I attended the Shoreline School Board meeting. I saw and heard the slick power point presentation of “facts” by DACPO to close North City and Sunset Elementary Schools. It felt like the de ja vu of Bush’s “cherry-picking” of people and intelligence to sell us on his illegal, immoral and pre-emptive Iraqi War. Just as there were no WMD’s, mushroom clouds nor 45 minute Iraq attacks and absolutely no connection to 9/11 and bin Laden. I was shocked to learn, from the audience, that glaring certain facts were missing. For example, there were no representatives from North City and Sunset on DACPO, even though they asked, but were denied. Were we not taught that our country was founded on the rallying call, “no taxation w/o representation,” therefore, no closures w/o representation! Perhaps “transparency,” a word held in proud esteem by the DACPO, might have gotten muddied, if there were North City and Sunset voices and concerns to include in their “facts.” One citizen from every school should have been on DACPO.
Finally, the proverbial light bulb went off, when the Service Employees International Union representative told the audience, that initially, they were not included in DACPO and had to ask. Can you fathom how a committee to study the need to resolve a shortage of funds would not include transportation, food service and janitorial costs in their determination? Shades of pre-Iraqi War!
Fran Lilleness
Shoreline
School curriculum
This math doesn’t add up for students
What is now passed off as math in our schools has degraded students’ abilities in the subject below world standards. This is catastrophic. I am not an expert, card carrying math educational administrator; I merely minored in math and find it a satisfying life-long hobby. One myth says that “old” math is too boring and can’t be taught. Another that “old” math is not pertinent to today’s job skills. Both totally untrue. Is math difficult? Sure, but why not strive to conquer difficult things?
Historically, when there have been differences of opinion, sometimes a contest ensued. David and Goliath. Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. Garry Kasparov and Deep Blue.
How about a math contest? I’d offer myself, an ordinary non-expert, against a Shoreline Math Administrator/Educator (not currently a teacher). In public, six hours, intense, timed and structured on world math standards and not WASL or the Shoreline district. Include all areas from simple multiplication up to basic differential and integral calculus. No books. No calculators. We do logarithms by hand with infinite series. Mano y mano. Scores posted immediately and not after six months. I’ll use the uncool, repetitive and archaic math of Leibniz, Euclid, Fermat and my fourth-12th grade math teachers. The math used by engineers, designers and builders in our region to build the best commercial airliners the world has ever seen. The math that took us to the moon and back. Versus current, cool, integrated, conceptual, philosophical math that is junk and debris math and a totally failed learning method.
With correct, traditional curriculum, students can be taught properly to learn math in a substantive and useful manner!
Raymond Koelling
Lake Forest Park
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