DISTRICT
The next school board meeting is 6 p.m. Monday, Nov. 5, in the district boardroom, 503 N. Sequim Ave. The public is invited to attend, and time is set aside for public comment. To view the agenda and minutes of past meetings and click on “School Board,” “Regular Communication” and “Agendas” on the district’s website at www.sequimschools.org.
An informational meeting about the Highly Capable program for families who are interested in having their child assessed is set for 6 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 14, in room 809 at Sequim Middle School, 301 W. Hendrickson Road.
GREYWOLF ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
The students at Greywolf Elementary recite the Kid’s at Hope Pledge each morning to start off their day. Nathalie Maynock’s fifth-graders recently took the Kid’s at Hope Pledge and personalized it based on their hopes and dreams for the future:
I am a Kid at Hope
Trent Allen
I am a kid at hope.
I am helpful, kind, nice, and positive.
I have dreams for the future.
I hope to graduate from high school, graduate college, and join the SWAT team.
I will climb to reach my goals and dreams by turning in homework, studying, and doing extra
College.
I can achieve my dreams.
I am capable of success.
No Exceptions!
I am a Kid at Hope
Laila Sundin
I am a kid at hope. I am creative, smart, and a bookworm.
I have dreams for the future. I hope to perfect my cursive and become bilingual
and ambidextrous.
I will climb to reach my dreams everyday by practicing writing in cursive with both
hands and by taking a language in college.
All children are capable of success.
No exceptions.
I am a Kid at Hope.
Kate Brouillard
I am a kid at hope.
I am nerdy, shy, and smart.
I have dreams for the future…
I hope to become a doctor, and be a better artist,
And to finish college all the way through.
I will climb to reach my goals and dreams by…
Studying to become a doctor,
By taking art classes
And studying hard to finish college.
I can achieve my dreams,
I am capable of success
NO EXCEPTIONS!
I am a Kid at Hope
Elijah Crawford
I am a kid at hope.
I am silly, kind and responsible.
I have dreams for the future.
I hope to do good in middle school, to be an engineer,
And to be kind and helpful.
I will climb to reach my goals and dreams by getting good grades in
Middle school and high school, and pass college and be a great adult.
I can achieve my dreams.
I am capable of success.
No Exceptions!
I am a Kid at Hope
Joshua Loucks
I am calm, smart, and a very deep thinker.
I have dreams for the future.
I hope to be a pilot, go to college, and invent things to make the world a better place.
I will climb to reach my goals and dreams by joining the Air force to get a pilot’s license,
Working hard in school, and by getting an engineering degree.
All kids are capable of success
No Exceptions!
I am a kid at Hope
Cassidy Granum
I am a kid at hope.
I am shy, smart and beautiful.
I have dreams for the future.
I hope to become a veterinarian, go to college and
Learn to cook.
I will climb to reach my goals and dreams by…
Taking a high school cooking class, keep learning and researching about animals,
And start saving for college.
I can achieve my dreams.
I am capable of success.
No Exceptions!
I am a Kid at Hope
Lincoln Forrest
I am quirky, funny, and smart.
I have dreams for the future.
I hope to become an engineer
And become successful.
I will climb to reach my goals by
Staying in school and paying attention.
I can achieve by dreams.
I am capable of success.
No exceptions!
HELEN HALLER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
Success Academy, the new specialist class at Helen Haller Elementary, focuses on the teaching and practicing social and emotional skills for all students. Success Academy is using Kelso’s Choices curriculum for Building Character and Conflict Management.
Students are learning what good character looks like, sounds like and feels like. Good character is built on being: Respectful, Caring, Fair, Responsible and Honest.
The following positive verbal and non-verbal conflict management strategies are being taught for students to use when conflicts arise: go to another game, talk it out, share and take turns, ignore it, walk away, tell them to please stop, apologize, make a deal and wait and cool off. Social and emotional skills benefit personal and academic goals at Helen Haller Elementary as well as the larger Sequim community.
Students in Eric Danielson’s fifth-grade classroom have been working on writing to explain. Students wrote about a family tradition that they have at home. Here are more of their writings:
Christmas Tradition
Every Christmas Eve night I stay up not to see Santa but because I can’t go to sleep. Do you know that feeling where you know something exciting is going to happen the next day? For example, getting a new pet. That’s how I feel. Eventually, I fall asleep.
After hours of waiting my parents wake up. After they wake up my brothers and I rush out to the living rooms and sit down on the couch. My parents tell us to go to our room, so they can hide more presents. How long does it take to hide a few presents? They do, but they also drink their coffee and watch T.V. for another 25 minutes. By this time my brothers and I are dying of boredom.
But after being tortured by boredom in our rooms they tell us to come out. When we do our parents told us that we are finding are presents our traditional way.
So, after they told us that we started sprinting around the house like animals scavenging for our gifts. I spot a present out of the corner of my eye but it’s not mine. It’s my brother Jaykes. So, I hide it where he wouldn’t expect it in our parents’ room. Then I tell my brother that he will never find it.
You might think our family tradition is strange but it’s fun.
— Korey Apley
Christmas Traditions
Every year on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day my family always does the same thing. On Christmas Eve we go to my dad’s side of the family and on Christmas Day we go to my mom’s side of the family.
When it’s Christmas Eve I’m always so excited to go to my dad side of the family. We drive to Port Angeles and drive up half of the mountain. We spend around 10 minutes trying to figure out how to squeeze our car into the drive way without damaging anyone’s car. When we go inside the whole house is filled with people. There are kid running around in circles. There are adults filling the room with voices.
Right away we put the presents under the huge tree for people I barley know. All the kids play games, watch TV, and beg the parents to let us open presents before dinner, but we always do it after dinner no matter what.
We stuff our mouths with thousands of different foods, and when we are finished with dinner, we go straight to the presents, but just before we all start ripping up everything, the parents insist on a picture of all of us together. Of course, the parents must all take one, so it’s one phone to the other to the other, and on and on. But then there is that one parent that doesn’t know how to take a simple photo and needs help.
After everyone is done taking pictures and were all a million years older, we finally open presents. Everyone just randomly grabs a present with their name on it and rips it open like there’s gold in it. We thank everyone for our gifts and then go home.
We get ready for bed once we get home and put milk and cookies out for Santa and then go to bed. We do that every year, except me and my mom decided that we will never go when it’s snowing because there is a hill that we have to go down and up in order to get there, and we’ll just say we had some bad memories going down it one Christmas Eve.
Now, on Christmas Day I’m always the first to wake up. I wake up the rest of my family and we open up presents right when everyone’s downstairs and ready to go. After presents we get ready to go to my mom’s side of the family. We sit around and talk there, and its only us, my grandparents and my uncle and my aunt with their two dogs, DeeDee and Skipper. I play with my uncles’ dogs and we open presents, and then we leave. We always do the same thing every year and I hope it’s like that every year.
— Annabel Ellofson
SEQUIM MIDDLE SCHOOL
We’ve all seen the destruction. The piles of debris once homes and businesses. The search and rescue. The endless lines for food and water. Those effected by Hurricane Michael clearly needed our help. Since we are currently studying storms as part of our first unit of the year, we watched geostationary satellite images for several days as Hurricane Michael formed above the extraordinarily warm waters of the Caribbean Sea, grew as it moved north and eventually roared ashore on the Gulf Coast.
Sequim Middle School students were stirred to action. Since Florida is too far away for us to go and volunteer, it was decided to take up a collection of money for a Help Florida! Hurricane Michael Relief Fund.
Over the course of just seven days, coins and bills poured into a 1-liter graduated cylinder. All totaled, seventh graders raised $127.81 to send to the humanitarian relief agency, the American Red Cross.
Spontaneous generosity, benevolence and care for fellow humans in crisis are indeed alive and well amongst the youth of Sequim!
— teacher Joe Landoni
SEQUIM HIGH SCHOOL
Sequim High’s Veteran’s Day assembly is Monday, Nov. 5, at 10:45 a.m. during students’ DEN time.
SHS athletes: Winter sports paper work is due Wednesday, Nov. 7, and the first day of winter sports is Monday, Nov. 12. Please note that there is no school on Nov. 12 and there will be no one available to process sports paperwork. Athletes will miss practice if they do not have their yellow and white card ahead of time.
Cooking club, a place to learn how to cook new foods and expand skills and knowledge within the kitchen, is back. Cooking Club will host its first informational meeting on Thursday, Nov. 1, after school in Dana Minard’s room (C-2). The club hosts a cookout during lunch, also on Nov. 1. Everyone is welcome to join.
The seniors-versus-staff volleyball game is Wednesday, Nov. 7. Seniors can sign up in the main office.
Parents, be sure to read the Sequim High November newsletter on the high school website (shs.sequimschools.org).
