Today’s blog post comes from our superintendent, Dr. Steve McCammon:

At our most recent school board meeting I had the honor of recognizing Rex Sutherland for nine years of dedicated service on the Fife School Board. Rex is leaving the board due to his relocation within the school district. Rex served as board president for several years and was in fact a member of the board that offered me this position over nine years ago. I take this additional opportunity to thank him for his leadership in times that have not always been easy as we have continued to weather the post 9/11 funding crisis that has impacted all school districts across our state and nation. Rex was integral in helping us to maintain a solid fund balance in lean times, enviable class sizes, as well as serving during a time when Fife became a national leader in our Standard Bearer school reform effort. His guidance on the completion of our Columbia Junior High School project as well as the agreement to build our turf field at SLMS was invaluable. He will be missed and I hope you will join me in thanking him for his selfless dedication to the students and staff of our fine school district.

There are 1,477 school board members in Washington and we feel that we have five of the finest right here in Fife!  We believe the role of a school board member is to be a community leader and advocate for schools; each one of our directors exemplifies just that.  In addition to the countless hours they spend preparing for and attending board meetings, they can be found throughout the communities that make up the Fife School District sharing their experiences and answering questions from our various stakeholders.  They attend numerous district events including periodic walkthroughs in each of our buildings, so that they can keep a pulse on what happens each day with our students and staff.  On behalf of all the students and staff in the Fife School District, thank you President Bob Scheidt, Bruce Burnside, Rex Sutherland, Marisa Michaud, and Doug Fagundes.  We appreciate your efforts!

Please visit http://www.fifeschools.com/district/schoolboard/index.html for all the latest school board information.

Dr. McCammon’s presentation was entitled, “Walking the Talk Toward Engaging Every Student”. His focus was upon the fact the even though the district graduated over 99% of all of its seniors last year at or above standard, it still is working on areas of concern in the learning of every child and made the case for why Fife School District is nationally recognized for the system of trust and collaboration that has been built among teachers, administrators, community, students and parents. He also talked about the changing demographics in our district. While the district is pleased with the growing amount of diversity in the district it does present a challenge as we have gone from 5% of our students at Discovery Primary that speak English as a second language six years ago to over 30% today.

He further encouraged the audience to check out the district website for more information on the districts efforts as well as mentioning what great information can be obtained by reading the national case study about Fife entitled “Changing the Quality of Student Experiences: The Fife Way”. This is the type of information the superintendent shares about our school district in those cases where he is invited to speak many times during the year at national conferences and in other school districts about the eight year process that our district has been about.

At the conclusion of the meeting the realtors in attendance were especially complimentary that Fife Schools have a great reputation and that this information will be great to share with prospective home buyers who are already actively pursuing a home in the district greatly due to the quality of our schools.