Ferris Scholar Scott Siera Posts Top Score On Sat

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out Scott Siera is one smart kid.

The Ferris High School senior is the only student in Spokane School District 81 to score a perfect 800 on either portion of the Scholastic Aptitude Test, according to the district.

To put it in perspective, more than 2,000 District 81 students took the test last school year.

While Siera fell a few points shy of a perfect score overall, he says he’s happy with the 800 he received on the math section of the exam - and the 720 he picked up on verbal.

“It’s pretty impressive,” he admitted with a unassuming shrug.

Siera took the test last spring, his first and only attempt at it.

The SAT is divided into math and verbal sections, with a combined possibility of 1,600 points. While more than a million students took a crack at the test this year, just 453 students nationally scored a perfect 1,600.

When he’s not solving equations, Siera plays principal trombone in Washington’s All-State Band and his school’s wind ensemble, marching band, jazz band and orchestra. He is a member of the school debate team, and he tutors local elementary students in Spanish.

Siera also writes a regular column for The Spokesman-Review’s Our Generation page.

Siera has faced some extra challenges along the way.

When he was 9, he was diagnosed with a tumor in the right half of his brain, which was surgically removed. Five years later, his freshman year, another tumor was found and had to be removed.

It didn’t affect his schoolwork, he said, because he didn’t let it. But it did spark an interest in neuroscience, a field Siera plans to pursue in college next year.

“I want to help others like myself either in the lab or on the operating table,” he said.

Spokane kids visit Santa’s helpers

A group of Spokane kids got a glimpse last week at what a North Pole toy workshop might look like.

As 34 kids from the Bancroft Center Head Start program filed into Mike Hadway’s woodshop classroom at Ferris High School, one wide-eyed 4-year-old boy lisped, “Is this where they make the toys?”

Indeed, some of Santa’s helpers were at work in Hadway’s class, where a table was covered with toy trains, cars and rocking horses, all fashioned from pine by Ferris students.

The toys were individualized, some stained, some rubbed in sand. There were sports cars, vans, monster trucks - in short, something for everyone.

For the fourth year, more than 50 Ferris woodshop students have donated their time to making the toys. Sixty-eight Head Start program kids, 34 in morning and 34 in the afternoon, visited the woodshop.

The Bancroft Center in North Spokane provides the Head Start program to kids from all over the city. Its kids feed into 24 local elementaries.

“It’s good to give something back,” said Hadway. “I’d like to get the whole community involved in coming years.”

Vice Principal Bob Crabb stood in for the big guy in red, ho-ho-hoing his way into the classroom and reading a holiday story to the kids. The kids each got a turn telling Santa what they wanted for Christmas, then picked a toy from the rapidly dwindling supply.

Woodshop department adviser and special education teacher Rob Cummins was up late the night before, helping carve out a few last-minute train sets to add to the collection. The few extra hours of work are worth it every year, he said.

“That’s what I get from this,” he said, looking at the classroom full of kids happily playing with their toys munching on candy canes.

“When you look at those faces, that’s what I get.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo

MEMO: The Education Notebook is a regular feature of the South Side Voice. Please let us know about interesting programs and activities, and the achievements of students, teachers, administrators, staff and volunteers at schools on Spokane’s South Side and in Cheney, Medical Lake and the Liberty School District. Contact Amy Scribner, South Side Voice, P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210. Or call 459-5439. Fax 459-5482.