RECORD SOUTH WHIDBEY
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2011 | Vol. 87, No. 79 | WWW.SOUTHWHIDBEYRECORD.COM | 75¢
INSIDE: Bumped, Sports, A10 NOT MAKING THE GRADE:
LOOKING FOR A PLACETO CALL HOME
Test scores drop at lower grade levels BY BEN WATANABE South Whidbey Record
Brian Kelly / The Record
Veterinarian Lyn Jones holds one of the cats that were rescued from a North Whidbey home that are awaiting adoption.
South Enders scramble to find homes for rescued pets BY BRIAN KELLY South Whidbey Record
CLINTON — The search is on for feline foster homes — or maybe something a bit more permanent — for more than a dozen cats that were recently rescued from a north end property that was nearly overrun with animals. Lyn Jones, a veterinarian who operates Creature Comfort Veterinary Housecalls in Clinton, has been helping care for 19 cats and two dogs that were taken from an Oak Harbor-area residence. With the help of Martha Burdick of Whidbey Cats, a group that arranges offisland spay-neuter operations for pet and feral cats, Jones has been slowly finding new homes for the animals. “We’re down to 14 today,” Jones said as she looked across a collection of portable pet kennels, each holding one or more cats, at a South Whidbey property. She paused and stooped down to quickly examine one small cat, who had a perpetually runny nose. “Are you OK, sweetie? Are you snotty again?” Over there is Samuel E., and there’s Winky, and Iman, and Yoda, and Bill the girl, and Puffy. “Most of these cats are so doggone sweet; they’re wonderful cats,” Jones
Brian Kelly / The Record
More than a dozen cats are living in temporary kennels in Clinton awaiting permanent or foster homes. said. “A lot of them are really friendly with dogs.” Jones called Burdick a miracle worker for her ability to convince the Oak Harbor woman to give up the 45 cats and 10 dogs she had on her property. Burdick wouldn’t call the woman an “animal hoarder,” adding that she really wanted to see the animals get better care. “She was totally on it, absolutely. That’s whey we got so many. It never would have happened without her cooperation,” Burdick said.
The animals hadn’t been abused, she added, but it was clear that they weren’t pets in the typical sense of the word. “Some of the dogs appeared to have zero human contact,” Jones said. “I had two of the sweetest dogs here, one of them was still scared silly of people.” Though one cat had intestinal problems, there were no major medical problems with the rescued animals. “I thought it was a great case of Darwinism,” Jones said. “The dogs all looked a little thin. And thanks to Martha, almost everybody was already spayed and neutered.” “The cats all looked pretty good, but they’re very heavy in parasites; every one of them has ear mites. A lot of fleas. They’ve never seen a vaccine.” Now the quest is to find homes for the animals. The Whidbey Animals’ Improvement Foundation took in five cats and a dog, but Burdick and Jones recounted their difficulty in finding any other shelters on-island and off which could accept such a high number of animals. Most have waiting lists to accept cats, Jones said, because they just don’t have room for more.
LANGLEY — State tests results for elementary and middle school students have left South Whidbey School District officials with plenty of problems and few solutions. “I have lots and lots of questions,” said District Superintendent Jo Moccia. Moccia presented the testing data from the 20102011 school year to the South Whidbey School Board on Wednesday and scores are down. From third to eighth grade, only two classes — third and sixth grade students — improved reading scores from the 2010 Measurements “What I want to of Student Progress. know is, what are Even that had the we spending our district concerned, because scores difmoney on?” fered wildly from Superintendent Jo Moccia, year to year. South Whidbey School District In third grade, 82.5 percent of students passed the reading exam. In fourth grade, the percent plummeted to 56, which is almost a 16-percent decrease from 2010’s results. Reading scores did not break 80 percent again until 10th grade, while most scores hovered in the 60- and 70-percent range. “The students have the skill,” Moccia said. “Perhaps we’re not addressing the right issue until 10th grade.” With insufficient gains in reading scores, South Whidbey Elementary School and Langley Middle School did not meet “adequate yearly progress” — a benchmark for academic achievement in the federal No Child Left Behind Act. Washington adopted the rules to raise the bar for reading and mathematics proficiency every year, with the federal goal of 100 percent student proficiency by the 2013-2014 school year. District officials said the effects of failing to meet the required progress were not yet known. However, Washington’s Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction website specifies that schools which do not make adequate yearly progress for two years are put on a school improvement plan. South Whidbey has missed the mark for two years. Though the scores missed the state’s mark for improvement, many were better than the state averages. But Moccia said that should be an expectation, and she wanted to compare South Whidbey to similar districts — based on population, ethnicity, the number of free and reduced lunches offered, the amount spent per student and other factors —
SEE CATS, A20 SEE SCORES, A20