The headline says it all. This is incredibly good news. Given all the resistance from parents and the legal trouble of Seattle School District after they selected the Discovering, I had wondered how the committee could ever even consider not choosing Holt but, apparently it was still a close call. The write-up at Bellevue Math Parents Blog has the nitty-gritty of the evening. I’m glad that finally someone pointed out how difficult it is for students to do homework and parents to support them when the books are not useful as reference materials…

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Sammamish High School’s Operation Smile Club and Tutoring Club will be putting on a charity practice SAT tomorrow 10/27/09 at Sammamish High. The Tutoring Club will be providing the test and professional analysis of each participant’s results at no cost. All proceeds will go toward correcting cleft lips and palates in Third World countries.

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Very interesting poster about the costs (and benefits) of a college education. The site it comes from isn’t much. Mainly general information about college funding (obviously, an excuse for making money out of Google adwords listings… but, at least they contracted for this cool poster!!!) As we parents try to figure out how to pay for college for our students, it’s nice to see evidence that our investment makes a economic sense, in addition to the philosophical benefits. I don’t know if there are any statistics currently available on what percentage of students from Bellevue School District go off to college but the percentage seems high. Consider this:

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While I’ve seen some really, really irreverent and hilarious bumper stickers, I’ve never been a big fan of the medium. For me, they are a bit like tattoos, while I might find it witty or beautiful today, I’m never sure that I will want to wave that flag for the lifetime of the tattoo or sticker. (I suppose I could put one on my window where I can scrape it off, but…)

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Bellevue School District (BSD405.org) has chosen a new Director of Curriculum Sharon (Collins) Kautz (the former Principal at Interlake High School). This is obviously a big hire for any of us that care about the future direction of curriculum in Bellevue School District. I do not know Sharon well enough to be able to categorize this as a win or a loss. It will be interesting to hear your opinions and to see her future performance.

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I’m at a bit of a loss for words (but I’ve never let that stop me before)! I got a memo from my son’s teacher informing parents that Bellevue School District (BSD405.org) would be taping (and screening) President Obama’s upcoming speech on Education, then would allow (or not) it to be disseminated to the kids.

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In February, we wrote, here, about one of Bellevue School District’sLilia Kol finest teachers, . Though her excellence needs no confirmation (at least for US!!!), we’ve recently found that Mrs. Kol won a Teacher Recognition Award in the 2009 Presidential Scholars Program. She was nominated by former student and 2009 Presidential Scholar, Brian Reiser, as the person most influential to his education.

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