RECORD SOUTH WHIDBEY
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2011 | Vol. 78, No. 81 | WWW.SOUTHWHIDBEYRECORD.COM | 75¢
INSIDE: Falcons hit high note, Sports, A10
UP TO THE TEST
Brian Kelly / The Record
Langley City Councilman Bob Waterman laughs during a lighter moment at Wednesday’s joint session with the port. City officials are not impressed with the first phase of the expansion proposal for the Langley Marina and are asking the port to reexamine its plans.
Ben Watanabe / The Record
Valerie Brown works on math skills with first-grade students Sophia Kinata and Kai Gallagher. Brown and the other teachers in South Whidbey School District will soon be subject to evaluations funded by a state grant.
Langley asks port to rethink marina project BY BRIAN KELLY South Whidbey Record
Granted: South Whidbey School District wins funding for pilot evaluation program BY BEN WATANABE South Whidbey Record
LANGLEY — Students in South Whidbey schools aren’t the only ones who will be scrutinized this year. Teachers and principals across the district will participate in a state-funded evaluation pilot program. Superintendent Jo Moccia announced the school district won a grant to study at least two evaluation systems. “We’re thrilled,” Moccia said. “We put it together with teachers in partnership and we couldn’t be happier,” she said. As a pilot program, the leaders in the district will provide input on the evaluations to the state superintendent’s office. School districts in Washington will be required to have an evaluation system by the 2013-2014 school year. It’s a reform of previous reviews that categorized teachers and principals as either
“We’re thrilled. We put it together with teachers in partnership and we couldn’t be happier.” Superintendent Jo Moccia, South Whidbey School District
satisfactory or unsatisfactory. Grant funds of $100,000 from the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction will go to the Northwest Educational Service District, and then be distributed to the other school districts that were awarded the pilot program. While some teachers unions across the country and state have resisted evaluations, South Whidbey’s union worked with the school district on the application. The South Whidbey Education
Association, the local teachers union, jointly filed the application in September. “We are hopeful this opportunity to work together affords the kind of collaboration between teachers and administration we have not seen for many years,” said union co-presidents Jan McNeely and Val Brown. “We look forward to being a partner in this process,” they added. “We hope the process results in a fair evaluation that fosters and encourages excellence in teaching and supports professional growth.” Collaboration was important to the district’s new leader, too. Moccia began as the superintendent in July and made cooperating with the teachers union a priority, which she said was at least a part of the reason the union agreed to the evaluation. SEE TEST, A20
LANGLEY — With city officials and others obviously underwhelmed with the Port of South Whidbey’s latest plan for upgrading the Langley Marina, the city council met with port commissioners for two hours this week to gently suggest that the project lacks wow power and needs to be changed. Talk of remaking the Langley Marina has stretched back years, and port officials have revised their plans for improving the small boat harbor multiple times in light of vanishing money to pay for the marina makeover. At a two-hour special joint session Wednesday, Langley officials said they hoped to have more influence as the project moves forward. Larry Kwarsick, Langley’s director of development and the city’s next mayor, said the move to hand the marina over to the port in 2009 didn’t pan out as some had hoped. The port’s current plan for improving the marina includes a $2.5 million first phase that would reposition its Bremerton breakwater just outside the existing harbor, a move that port officials say will create a protective perimeter for
the existing marina while giving tour boats and walk-on ferries a place to moor. Kwarsick said the marina project has been “a significant challenge for the port, on their own, to try and tackle.” “In retrospect, I see that as maybe not the best path to achieve the best goal for the community,” he said. He said the interlocal agreement — the two-party contract signed in 2007 that transferred the ownership of the marina from the city to the port — should be reviewed. Kwarsick said the contract should be changed and both sides should come up with an alternative operating and financing plan. City officials are worried that the project will be stalled after the first phase, and that future improvements may come many years later, if ever. “We spent a lot of time getting to this point. While I very much appreciate the economic benefits that this phase could have for the city, I don’t believe it’s real to envision those future phases in the near future,” Kwarsick said. “I look at this not as a phase but as almost a finished product.” Port officials went to great SEE MARINA, A14