Wendy Scherrer writes this guest post. She is a very respected and long time leader in the Happy Valley neighborhood.
Larrabee Elementary School is the center of Bellingham’s southside community, providing a secure place for learning, a walkable school for K-5th grade children,and a gathering space and playground for neighbors. Despite the objections of many students, neighbors, and parents, Bellingham School District's Supt. Dr. Greg Baker is holding a hearing with the Bellingham School Board to consider closure of this important neighborhood school.
The Happy Valley Neighborhood Assoc. Board believes that there is a calculable and an incalculable value of preserving, renovating and keeping Larrabee School open. Larrabee families are working together with the Happy Valley Neighborhood Association to keep Larrabee Elementary open and preserve the vitality of the Happy Valley neighborhood. We believe that the school district could work to modernize and retrofit Larrabee, add 21st century technology, ensure accessibility, and extend the life-cycle of existing building.
The Bellingham School Board will hold a hearing at the Larrabee Elementary School gym, 1409 18th Street. The Hearing is on May 8, 2013, at 5:30pm. A “Keep Larrabee School Open Rally” will be at 5pm, on the Larrabee playground before the hearing.
For information from the Save Larrabee School advocates, contact:
or contact
Wendy Scherrer, 360-319-9518, or (bluegreen.northwest@gmail.com)
Comments by Readers
Marian Beddill
May 09, 2013I see that the School Board voted 4-1 to close Larrabee.
Clayton Petree
May 10, 2013They recently renovated Birchwood Elementary and that turned out well. I think our walkable neighborhood elementary schools are valuable and should be kept open.
Scott Wicklund
May 10, 2013The Bellingham Public Schools are in the hands of an ideologue with an agenda against smaller schools! This agenda began in Portland, Oregon and it was a train wreck there. A little internet research will help you get the picture. Think of some school principals dressed in Penguin costumes ...
http://www.wweek.com/portland/article-6599-march_of_the_principals.html
“Two school administrators and a principal dressed like penguins walk into a Sheraton ballroom. This isn’t the beginning of a joke, even if it sounds like one.
This is the regularly scheduled meeting for all 161 Portland Public Schools principals, vice principals and assistant principals on Thursday, Feb. 1.
Cynthia Gilliam and Greg Baker from the school district’s central office are wearing tuxedos. Skyline Elementary School principal Ben Keefer is dressed in a rented penguin costume. The trio is at the Sheraton Portland Airport Hotel to perform a skit with an “urgent” message for the district’s administrators, many of whom—in real life—face parent and teacher opposition to the districtwide adoption of new curricula and lingering doubts about school closures.
The skit’s message is based on a recent business book. Here’s its story line: The iceberg is melting, and it’s up to the leaders of the waddling tribes of penguins to warn their dependents, who are totally in denial. The danger, however, is real. And if the penguin leaders fail to convey their doomsday warnings convincingly, the adorable aquatic characters in this anthropomorphic fable will be swallowed by the cold, rising sea.”
There is much more out there to help you understand this person’s agenda. The School Board members who hired him need to go. Any levies attempted by this group need to be shot down. Bellingham needs to regain control of its public school system. The people who wore the tuxedos need to work their magic elsewhere. There must be accountability soon.