Tag Archives: teachers

Seven Bainbridge teaching jobs saved by grassroots campaign

Seven Bainbridge teachers can trade in their pink slips for paychecks this fall.

In just over a month, Bainbridge school supporters raised over $200,000 to retain teachers laidoff during recent budget cuts. The donations – which came from yard sales, car washes and a few students’ piggy banks – will be combined with $50,000 the Bainbridge Schools Foundation raised last year and $250,000 it expects to raise during the next school year. The combined $500,000 will return seven teachers to their classrooms.

“The community has been unbelievably generous and helpful and inspiring,” foundation Executive Director Vicky Marsing said. “And it all happened in a very short time.”

Tuesday capped the five-week-long “Save Our Teachers” campaign, which was launched shortly after the Bainbridge Island School district announced it would layoff 17 teachers to help offset a $2.2 million budget shortfall.

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Weekend fundraisers net $50,000 to retain laid-off teachers

Bainbridge school supporters raised $50,000 over the weekend to save some teachers from being laid off.

Islanders washed cars, hosted a school dance, held a garage sale and collected donations to raise funds for the Bainbridge Schools Foundation’s “Save Our Teachers” campaign.

Foundation Executive Director Vicky Marsing called the effort “unbelievable.” The garage sale doubled organizers’ expectations, raising more than $22,000.

Marsing highlighted a couple small community contributions, including a local boy who played his saxophone at the garage sale for donations and an older gentleman with a vast wine collection who plans a wine-tasting to raise money. Parents have been making donations to the campaign instead of giving teachers end-of-the-year gifts, Marsing said.

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School supporters rallying to save teachers

Bainbridge parents and students are using car washes, a coin drive and lemonade stands to drum up enough money to retain recently laid-off teachers.

They’re planning a to wash cars at the Chevron station at the corner of High School Road and Hildebrand Lane this afternoon. A large, all-day yard sale is slated for Saturday at Wilkes Elementary. Also on Saturday, a rally will begin at 9:30 a.m. at the High School Road roundabout to encourage support for the Bainbridge Schools Foundation’s “Save Our Teachers” effort.

“The goal is to collect as much money as possibly by June 30 to hire back as many teachers as possible,” foundation Executive Director Vicky Marsing told Sun education reporter Marietta Nelson. “We’re really looking to make a broad appeal to a lot of different families.”

Read the rest of Nelson’s story here.

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School board approves 18 job cuts, including 12 teachers

The Bainbridge Island School Board unanimously passed a resolution Thursday evening to cut 12 teachers and six other certified positions.

The district is trying to offset an expected $2.2 million budget shortfall for the 2009-2010 school year.

Reductions include seven teachers in kindergarten through sixth grades and the equivalent of four teachers in seventh through 12th grades. An additional teaching position devoted to curriculum development will also be lost.

Other positions will be trimmed from the administrative, counseling, nursing, special education, home school support and multicultural education rosters.

The staffing reduction is likely the largest in the district’s history, Bainbridge Superintendent Faith Chapel said.

Bainbridge isn’t alone. Bremerton and North Kitsap school districts joined Bainbridge last week in issuing laying off notices for about three dozen teachers.

Read our story on the county-wide school cuts here.

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BI schools may cut 12 teachers

As I reported here (in yesterday’s Sun), the Bainbridge Island School District may cut 18 certified positions – including 12 teachers – for the next school year.

“These kinds of cuts are devastating for a school district of our size,” school board President Mary Curtis said.

The proposed certified staff cuts is on top of possible reductions for classified staff (custodians, groundskeepers, etc.) I noted in a previous blog post.

The district will hold a public meeting on the cuts tomorrow (Thursday), 7 p.m., at Bainbridge High School.

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Rolling Bay post office could bear Bainbridge war hero’s name

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill today that would name the Rolling Bay post office after World War II Medal of Honor awardee John ‘Bud’ Hawk.

Decorated with five of the U.S. Army’s top medals in the battlefields of Europe, the Bainbridge Island native was also celebrated for his years in the classrooms of Kitsap County.

“He was a hero for answering his nation’s call in the late 1940s,” said Rep. Jay Inslee, the bill’s prime sponsor. “And he was a hero for several decades to the students he educated.”

Inslee gathered all members of the Washington House delegation to co-sponsor the bill. See a video of Inslee introducing the bill below.

Hawk, now a Bremerton resident, spent his youth in the north Bainbridge neighborhood served by the small Valley Road post office that may soon bear his name.

“He was a son of Rolling Bay,” Inslee said. “He grew up playing with his sister around the post office we’re about to name in his honor.”

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