DISTRICT

The next school board meeting is 6 p.m. Monday, May 21, in the library at Helen Haller Elementary School, 350 W. Fir St. The public is invited to attend, and time is set aside for public comment. To view the agenda and minutes of past meetings, click on “Board of Directors” and “2017-2018 agendas” on the district’s website at www.sequimschools.org.

GREYWOLF ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

Rep. Steve Tharinger (D-24th District) recently stopped for a tour of the new kindergarten classrooms at Greywolf Elementary School. Tharinger chairs the House Capital Budget Committee, which controls the state’s construction budget and provided funding for the construction of these classrooms using cross-laminated timber (CLT). This new, renewable technology can take the place of steel and concrete while speeding up construction.

Tharinger is working on updating the school construction funding and code requirements and is seeking input from school leaders. The new classrooms at Greywolf were built as a pilot project to see how CLT works in classrooms.

Greywolf Elementary School celebrated its “Lunch Lady Heroes” at on Friday, May 4. They work hard each day to prepare breakfast and hot lunches for our Greywolf students and staff.

The school honored regular staffers Kim Sharp and Kristi Minkoff, along with substitute Maria Cisneros (who normally works at Sequim High School).

Fifth-grade students from Jennifer Lopez’s class were recent recipients of biography books donated by Janet Thomas of Sequim. The students each chose a famous person to read about and selected a second source to further their research. Students were given the task of choosing whether their famous person would best be described as creative, persistent, or hard working and backing up their opinion with evidence from their research.

Here are more of their essays:

“Muhammad Ali: The Greatest Persistent Man”

By Jamison Gray

The best word to describe Muhammad Ali is persistent. The reason why I say this is that in the book called Who Was Muhammad Ali it says, “Cassius won eight fights in 1961 and won six fights in 1962. He never lost a game.” this proves that he is persistent because it is very hard to win 14 times in a row and go undefeated for two years straight. That is very hard to do and you have to be very persistent to do that.

Another example of persistent is his smack talk. Here is proof that he has been talking since he started boxing, “Talking is something that Cassius had been very good at. Even as a teenager, he had not been afraid to boast about his skills.” This proves that the time he started boxing he had smack talked, that shows how long he can be persistent.

The last reason that I say Muhammad Ali is persistent is that, he didn’t abandon his religion, (which was Islam) even though his fans and family didn’t like him changing religions, this is what I found on Encyclopedia Britannica in an article called “Muhammad Ali”, “Though millions of people, including his family, disagreed with him, Muhammad Ali stuck to his beliefs.” This just goes to show that even through the toughest times you can still be persistent.

“Amelia Earhart one of the most famous female pilots in history”

By Kirra Henderson

I think the word that best represents my famous person Amelia Earhart is hard-working. I think she is hard working because she worked very hard on learning how to fly a plane and became a very very famous pilot. To do that she had to work very hard to achieve her goals even when she was going through a tough time. In the book Who was Amelia Earhart it states on page 78, “Her father had died. It was a very hard sad time for Amelia. She missed her father. She also was under a lot of pressure.” This explains how hard working she is for not giving up even when her dad died. The next reason why I think Amelia Earhart is hard working because in the Encyclopedia Britannica article “Amelia Earhart,” on paragraph 6 it said, “Determined to justify the renown that her 1928 crossing had brought her, Earhart crossed the Atlantic alone on May 20-21, 1932.” This proves that she was working really hard to be able to cross the Atlantic alone. Last but not least I think Amelia was hard working because in the book, Who was Amelia Earhart it said, “By 1929, Amelia was the best known pilot in America.” She worked very hard to be able to be a well-known pilot. This is why I think Amelia Earhart is hard working.

HELEN HALLER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

As the carnival sets up in the school’s “back yard” and others prepare for the Sequim Irrigation Festival, Haller’s fourth-grade students in Jaysa Hill’s and Jesse Klinger’s classes are wrapping up their spring testing and looking forward to some end-of-the-year experiences.

One such experience includes some hands-on learning off campus. At the beginning of the school year, students attend the annual River Festival at Railroad Bridge Park. This trip provides students with an opportunity to learn more about their local watershed and ecosystem.

In the winter, fourth-graders visited the Port Townsend Marine Science Center, where they spent their time learning about marine ecosystems and food chains. The students studied the different types of marine wildlife and discussed the positive and negative effects that people can have on the natural habitats of these animals.

Now they students are preparing to visit Olympic National Park. Last week, park rangers visited Haller classrooms to share about local interacting ecosystems and the flora and fauna that live in each one. In the meantime, several students have been researching the different regions of Washington State to provide additional background knowledge to their classmates.

Following a field trip to the park, students will be applying their learning to their studies of Washington State history, their final unit for both literacy and social studies this school year.

“The students have grown significantly this year and we are looking forward to these final six weeks of learning, and of course, summer break,” Hill says.

SEQUIM HIGH SCHOOL

Sequim High School’s Scholarship Awards Ceremony will be held at 6 p.m. Wednesday, May 30, in the auditorium. Students who have received scholarships will be recognized during this ceremony. A brief reception will be held in the cafeteria following the ceremony.

Graduation ticket distribution for graduating (walking) seniors is Wednesday, June 6. Seniors will need to pick up and sign for their tickets in the main office. Sorry, family and friends are not allowed to pick up the tickets. Note: lost or stolen tickets will not be replaced.

Ticket holders will be admitted to the stadium between 5-6 p.m. Seating will be on a first-come basis; there will be no reserved seating. A section will be marked off near the bleachers for those that need wheelchair access. Also, the first row of the bleachers will be for those not able to climb stairs/steps.

Helen Haller Elementary students Olivia Folstrom, Tiffany Lam, Tilipue Poaipuni and Sofia Chavez learn about sea life at the Port Townsend Marine Science Center. Submitted photos

Greywolf Elementary School honors its “Lunch Lady Heroes” staffers on May 4. Pictured, from left, are Maria Cisneros (a substitute who normally works at Sequim High School) Kim Sharp and Kristi Minkoff. Photo by Tricia Stratton