Tory Composites received the Superintendent’s Civic Spirit Award at the Bethel School Board meeting on December 11.  Mr. Seigel presented the award to Dennis Frett, Vice President of Toray at Frederickson and Tatsuma Nagaya, Director of Business Development and Global Strategy and Kazumi Kawamura.

Toray has been working on an education program at the Pierce County Skills center as well as being involved with a student exchange trip to Japan and donations to needy families in the Bethel District during the holidays.

Later in the board meeting, Assistant Superintendent for Secondary Schools, Jennifer Bethman presented data on graduation rates. Currently graduations are averaging between 82 and 88% in the district.  She announced there was a recent trend toward a slight increase in the graduation rate. “We could have a 90% graduation rate in 4 years if we have the resources,” commented Superintendent Seigel, referring to the state funding issues and cut backs of recent years.

The next presentation was brief, although he content of the data for it was significantly longer. School Improvement Plans are updated and reviews each year by the board. These plans are lengthy and require hours for reading. They are precisely why the board gets their documents online several days before the meeting. If  you would like to take a look at the school improvement plans, there are available at  Elementary SIP 2012-13   Secondary SIP 2012-13.

If you would like to see more of the documents and agenda items, each meeting and the minutes are listed on the Public portion of BoardDocs.

During the public comment period this evening, the first speaker was Paul Virdell, the father of Chris Virdell who disappeared near Bethel High School on the morning of February 9, 2012. Chris was a graduate of Bethel and was catching a bus to work at the South Hill Safeway. There is a $50,000 reward for helping solve this missing person’s case through Crime stoppers. Mr. Virdell spoke about his son’s disappearance and is fairly certain his son was murdered. He commented that he would like the board and administration to take a harder look at what they can dot o help curb gangs in the high school and vicinity.

The next three speakers were from the new 723 Networking Group that meets in Elk Plain at JR’s Whistle Stop. This is a group of business people to whom Superintendent Seigel spoke a couple weeks ago about plans for the Aquatic Center.

First, was Richard Wills of Northwest Advanced Medical Massage. He noted that as Mr. Seigel started describing the Aquatic Center, “We all got really excited.” He said he hoped the board considers using Federal Way as a model. Then he mentioned he had a booth at the ABC Day at Bethel High School and he was very impressed with the JROTC. “Those young men and women shine,” he said.

Next speaker was Terrance Belieu. He is a former county planner and is currently building the Mountain Plaza Business Park at 208^th and the Mountain Highway. He encouraged the board to support the construction of an aquatic center. His daughter attend Bethel schools and graduated from BHS. He noted his business park will open around April or May of next year with a Round Table pizza parlor and several other key small businesses.  He commended the district for their work on construction projects that came in under budget, on time and even early in some cases.

“JR,” John Reynolds, who owns JR’s Whistle Stop, spoke of the aquatic center and said, “It would be an outstanding thing if we can do it.” He told the board that there are about 50 businesses in the 723 Networking group and they all concur it would be a good thing for the community.

The minute of this meeting should be available on BoardDocs in a few days. The actual conversations are recorded and must be requested, if desired. The board minutes usually just show how the board voted on action items.