The value of combining Whidbey Island’s school districts is an idea that has existed for some time and is worth exploring further. Without analysis, it is hard to say if the exercise would improve each school district’s current financial circumstances.
System must change first
As the period for requesting intra-district transfers (May 13 through June 6) draws near, one feels compelled to ask those form-filling-out folks, have you considered your neighborhood elementary school?
In January 1986 as a third year teacher I listened with pride as our nation’s first teacher in space, Christa McAuliffe, blasted off in the space shuttle Challenger. I was due at a meeting, I turned the radio off before the explosion. And in the time that it took me to walk to the office of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School, seven astronauts were dead, eulogized by President Reagan that evening as having “slipped the surly bonds of earth” to ”touch the face of God.”
A disturbing new trend in roadside litter leaves us wondering about the future of Whidbey Island.
I strongly believe the pope should resign. He has failed to fulfill his responsibilities to the Catholic Church and its members, especially the children, by not expelling the pedophiles within the priesthood. There is no excuse for his gross negligence.
Cases in Oak Harbor and Everett last week look ridiculous on the surface, but do make that point that it’s very hard to return sex offenders to the community once they have served their time.
Mr. Thomas Garrod (Letters, April 19) doesn’t do his homework very well. According to the Whidbey Island Almanac, 60 percent of the population is connected to the Navy base. The mistake that most people make is thinking that the military only includes those in uniform. There are people here who are retired military that would also leave if the base closed. That includes teachers, law enforcement, doctors, small business owners, and artists: at least two-thirds of your neighbors. The base itself pours over $500,000,000 into the island economy each year. That doesn’t count the money that we retired military spend here.
In these times of divided politics and increasing numbers of our men and women deployed in defense of our country, it is so important to foster patriotism in our youth.
Americans almost never get a chance to spend like their government, but thanks to our elected leaders that chance is coming to a mailbox near you.
Washington State Ferries’ desk pilots have at long last fired up their calculators and determined they can’t build three ferries for $85 million, so they will build two instead.
In rebuttal to the statement made by Senator Mary Margret Haugen in the Whidbey News-Times article dated April 19, titled “Ferry bidding delayed again.” That statement reads as follows:
Great gray whales have the longest migration route of any animal known, from the Bering Sea and Chukchi Seas, north, to the Baja Mexican waters, south, roughly 5,000 to 6,000 miles.
