Ritzville school receives $80,000 in grants

RITZVILLE – Superintendent Don Vanderholm recognized administrators and staff members for their success in applying for grants at the Feb. 24 school board meeting.

“In the last 30 days, we’ve brought in over $80,000 worth of grants,” Vanderholm said.

A $4,000 Waste Not Washington grant was received by Lind for a “Farm to School Compost” project, and Ritzville received a $4,000 “Renewable Food Service Kitchen Updates” grant.

The high school received a $60,000 grant from College in the High School to support the middle school to high school “pipeline” with Career and Technical Education dual credit, and College in the High School tuition, materials and industry recognized credentials.

A $13,000 was received from Clearway Energy at Rattlesnake Flats for Ritzville Grade School playground equipment.

“It’s exciting to see our staff working on grants, and getting them,” said Ritzville School Board Chair Marci Miller.

Vanderholm said a third round of federal stimulus funding is coming which will help schools “make themselves whole again.”

“With this one, we have a little more leeway on how the money can be spent, which is a positive thing for our district,” Miller said.

Vanderholm briefly reviewed a bill currently in the Legislature regarding emergency waiver of credits for high school graduation and high school and college funding.

High School Principal Kevin Terris reported a senior class of 40, with four of the students being fifth-year returning students. Terris reported 70% of the seniors are on track to graduate.

“It’s not perfectly rosy, but it could be a lot worse,” Terris said.

He said most of the students will be able to finish up any incompletes left over from last year, and students and parents are aware of the process required.

“Every one of these students has a plan in place,” Terris said.

Sara Dinkins reported at Lind Elementary School they are focusing on character traits this month. Dinkins reported for Ritzville Grade School Principal Cindy Deska, that she was pleased they had 93% attendance in remote learning on the recent snow day.

Lind Middle School Principal Darrell Lembcke said kids were looking forward to FFA week coming up March 1.

“It’s going to be fun. And that’s what we’re on, is getting some fun back in school,” Lembcke said.

He said students in Mrs. Heater’s math class did analytical research into companies, looking at their products and how the stock performances for the companies varied throughout different quarters, including during Covid.

“There was some great analytical stuff going on there,” Lembcke said.

Principals Lembcke and Terris presented information on the school district potentially moving from semester to trimester scheduling. Terris said in the current 50-minute class periods, students get 4,000 minutes of class time, whereas in a trimester schedule class time would be 70 minutes and students would get 4,200 minutes of class time.

“The big change is, each student can earn 2.5 credits per trimester, or 7.5 credits per school year. Right now they earn seven,” said Terris. “So over a four-year time period, a student will be exposed to two additional credits that they wouldn’t have under a semester schedule.”

Lembcke said benefits at Lind Middle School include the longer time periods allowing teachers the ability to go in more depth, and English Language Arts and Math blocks would have 25% more instructional time.

“It’s 12,660 minutes compared to the 9,000 minutes they currently have,” Lembcke said. “That’s pretty significant.”

Lembcke said the students would also have opportunity for more choices and flexibility to choose electives.

“We’re still getting staff feedback on the system, but it would allow us to create some great opportunities for kids; both those who want to accelerate, and kids that have fallen behind,” Miller said.

Vanderholm reported since moving to stage 5, which allowed all high school students on campus four days a week, they had not seen any Covid cases among students or staff.

“We had some strong reactions to the vaccine, including me, but no Covid cases,” Vanderholm said.

Student Representative Amy Anderson reported students were glad to be back in school every day, seeing friends from other classes, and having more in-person lessons.

Vanderholm next spoke on future reopening plans.

“Social distancing is killing schools opening up,” Vanderholm said. “You can’t do it with six feet. There is quite an effort on this side of the state to push to make some changes.”

Vanderholm said a letter was sent to the governor saying school districts would like it changed from six feet down to three feet, as done in other countries.

School nurse Aimee Schell reported attending an online ESD 101 and OSPI meeting and learning more about the state’s new comprehensive sexual education law. Schell said Lind-Ritzville Schools are already meeting the state law’s requirements. She said for kindergarten through third grade, the education is based on social-emotional learning, which is being met through the Character Strong program.

“We’re already doing it. There’s nothing more to the law,” Schell said. “It’s social emotional learning, and we’re already meeting that objective. So that’s wonderful.”

Schell said regarding fourth through 12th grade sexual health law changes, the Flash program the school is currently using covers all of the law.

“So we really won’t be changing anything,” Schell said. “I thought that was fantastic news.”

The next school board meeting is scheduled for March 24 at 6:30 p.m. in Lind.