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Happy Holidays from the Reporter staff Medical Detectives | McNight Middle School students go hands-on to learn about the brain. [3]
FRIDAY, DEC. 26, 2014
Teachers grow more unhappy with Common Core changes
45 years of warmth and giving from the Mitten Tree BY TRACEY COMPTON tcompton@rentonreporter.com
School board hears complaints about lack of teacher voice in decisions that affect their jobs
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or the 45th year Renton’s First Savings Bank Northwest donated a tree full of knitted mittens, gloves, scarves and booties to the Salvation Army. “Forty-five years is a long time…this is something that’s deeply rooted in Renton as First Savings Bank is,” said Carol Janssen, marketing vice president. “We’re 91 years old and just being a part of the community for that long and giving back to the community is important.” The tradition started in 1969 when Tom Ross, a lending officer, suggested the giving, family themed tree to H.A. Blencoe, the CEO at the time. Every year since the company has placed a large tree in its lobby and watched as donations came from all over the community and country to fill its boughs from customers and non-customers alike. “This is like nothing I’ve ever seen before,” said Major Kris Potter of the Salvation Army. “This is an incredible work of labor and love and effort from a whole assortment of people.” Potter was amazed at the amount of color, shapes and sizes packed on the tree. “It’s a work of love,” he said. “They call it a Knitten-Mitten Tree, but it’s really a tree of love is what it is.”
BY TRACEY COMPTON tcompton@rentonreporter.com
Teachers and staff in the Renton School District are expressing their frustrations about a lack of support for aligning curriculum with the new national reading, writing and math standards adopted by Washington state. At a recent school board meeting on Dec. 10, four teachers spoke during the comment period, one near tears, addressing problems with the implementation of the Common Core State Standards. The standards are academic benchmarks for reading and math that lay out what students should know and do at each grade level and after high school. Fighting back tears, Katie Thorleifson, a teacher at Campbell Hill Elementary, reported that 11 out of 14 teachers informally surveyed at her school said they have thought about quitting. [ more TEACHERS page 6 ]
The Salvation Army’s Major Kris Potter and helper collect mittens, gloves, hats, scarves and booties from First Savings Bank Northwest’s Knitten-Mitten Tree.TRACEY COMPTON, Renton Reporter
Vision House food bank robbed, restocked by donors within a week BY BRIAN BECKLEY
bbeckley@rentonreporter.com
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[ more VISION HOUSE page 6 ]
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Venetia Vango, Development manager for Vision House stands in the recently restocked food bank that was robbed a week earlier. BRIAN BECKLEY, Renton Reporter
A break-in at their food bank on Dec. 11 left the folks at Vision House wondering how they were going to make ends meet for their clients during the holidays. But then, when word began to spread of the crime and the need, the donations began to flow from everywhere and all of sudden the talk began to change into that most elusive of all holiday plot twists: the Christmas Miracle. “Yes, we’ve been tossing that word around,” said
Vision House Development Manager Venetia Vango last week. Vision House is a nonprofit organization that provides transitional housing to homeless women and families. Most stay at the facility and supplement their incomes through a small food and clothing bank, known as the “resident store,” located on the property. Presently, 23 families live at the Renton facility. On the morning of Dec. 11, Vango and her staff arrived to find that someone had stripped the shelves