LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: I Want a Bothell Cougar!

I Want to Be A Bothell Cougar!

I grew up chanting that, I bled that Bothell blue. Little did I know that even though I supported my school district, my school district did not support me.  

In 2006 I was a freshly grown Bothell Graduate ready to make my way in the world. I headed first to Seattle Central Community College where I took a placement exam. That was my first realization that although I loved my hometown and my Bothell pride I was not up to snuff with the rest of the world. When my placement exam came back I was shocked to see that my math results placed me in the lowest math bracket that they offered.

Like most kids in elementary I was great at math but as soon as I entered fifth grade it all started to get confusing. Trying my hardest wasn’t enough; I always left school more confused then when I started. My pre-college years were spent going home and asking my mother (an art major) to help me with not only understanding the math but also understanding how the problem was written. Every year I became more confused and frustrated, the same thing could have been said for my teachers.

Everyday math or “fuzzy math” as I like to call it, not only left kids in the dark but it did not prepare them for college. I am one of the many that came out of that district not even close to college ready. Dawn McCravey heard many stories including mine and it is because of our stories of failure that she ran for the Northshore School Board. She not only hoped to change the math curriculum but to give kids the chance at a better future.

Since Dawn has been on the board we have seen many changes for the better, all focusing on the children of Northshore. The math has been updated, something that I suppose Ms. B-Z Davis had just been sitting on for almost 20 years. I guess in hopes that one day she could let someone else deal with the under-par job that the board had been doing, for coincidentally about the same amount of time that Ms. B-Z was on the board herself.

Literacy curriculum has also gotten a face-lift in the last 3 1/2years, not to mention the upcoming improvements to the science and many other programs. All of these changes happened in the last few years. While the boards before worried about where the next cut was going to be, the current board, with Board President Dawn McCravey, has done “magic” with what they have been given.

Dawn McCravey brought back learning to our schools; she gave children the chance to achieve. As we all should know, giving children that chance to achieve their goals is the same as giving ourselves the chance to have goals worth achieving in our future.  Dawn McCravey has known this all along. I SUPPORT DAWN MCCRAVEY!

Katie Bell