SeattlePI story on Renton School District “Backpacks full of hope”

Congratulations to Ms. Hudson! Her performance at Cascade Elementary has been amazing.

Mayor Law briefly left our budget retreat today to represent us all at the award presentation. The council was very excited to hear the details when he rejoined us.

Here is the story in the Associated Press:

Last updated October 29, 2008 10:19 a.m. PT
Renton elementary principal wins national award

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

RENTON, Wash. — The principal of Cascade Elementary School in Renton is the Washington winner of a prestigious national award that comes with a $25,000 prize.

When state schools chief Terry Bergeson visited Shannon Harvey’s school on Wednesday morning, the principal thought Bergeson was giving the school a new state award. News that she won the Milken Educator Award came as a surprise.

Bergeson spoke of Harvey’s vision: her ability to keep the school running smoothly day-to-day while also achieving long-term goals. Under her leadership, Cascade has gone from 48 percent of students passing the reading test of the Washington Assessment of Student Learning to 81 percent passing the test.

Harvey has been principal at Cascade since 2004.

10 year old Highland’s elementary student Haben Abraham continues to wow audiences with her singing!

Here is a story from today’s Seattle Times:

Strong set of pipes takes girl to New York City

By MARY SWIFT
P-I COLUMNIST

She’s a personable 10-year-old with a demeanor that melts hearts — and that’s even before Renton’s Haben Abraham opens her mouth to sing. Then, jaws drop and audience members are sometimes so moved they dab at tears.

Haben was just 9 last spring when she wowed attendees at the Renton Salvation Army’s annual fundraising dinner with her rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Now Haben, a fifth-grader at Renton’s Highlands Elementary School, is getting ready to play to a national audience.

She’s scheduled on a segment of “The Maury Show” set to air 3 p.m. May 6 on KCPQ-TV.

Read the full story by clicking here

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Footnote from Randy: Some of you might remember that my council colleague Marcie Palmer had a role in getting Haben the Salvation Army Fundraising gig mentioned above. Here is a link to this earlier story Obviously Marcie knows talent when she hears it.

There has recently been a city hall email buzz about potentially spotty collection of Issaquah School District impact fees.

The City of Renton sits in three different school districts: Renton, Issaquah, and Kent. Both Issaquah and Kent charge impact fees for new construction of homes of a few thousand dollars per home, which is used to off-set the cost of the new schools that will be required to serve the new residents. Renton School District does not charge an impact fee for new homes.

While the fee on new construction is a pass-though, which goes directly to the school district, the City of Renton serves as the collecting authority…we are the agency that is permitting the constuction and collecting fees, so we are in the best position to collect the School district impact fees.

Lately, East Plateau resident (and Issaquah Distict resident) Claudia Donnelly has flagged some new developments where this fee was apparently not collected, or at least not on the time frame she would have expected.

It sounds like this needs to be investigated, as I am now starting to wonder exactly who makes the final declaration about which school district a property is in at the time of building application. For vacant land, it could take a survey and careful mapping to be sure that it is clear which side of the district line each home is on.

The city of Renton receives no benefit either way since the fee is a pass-through. If we are culpable in any way, it’s not because of trying to balance any budgets…it would be more likely process confusion. Clearly, Issaquah has the most to gain in terms of getting this process in order, but we may need to do better in some way ourselves.

The email below is a sample of recent correspondance. The bottom email is from Ms. Donnelly, and includes a letter she posted in the Issaquah Press; the top email is our City Clerk’s response back to her.

I’m sure we will hear more about this before it is completely resolved.

read the email here