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Rasha Madkour

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News >  Features

Kids are never too young for Ramadan

Kulsum Tasnif’s kids might be too young to fast during Ramadan, but that doesn’t mean they’re off the hook for the month. The Mason, Ohio, resident has resolved to use the occasion – and its focus on helping those in need – as a way to encourage her three children, ages 4 to 8, to become more civic-minded.
News >  Idaho

Dropout rate worries tribe, district

PLUMMER, Idaho – Here's the primary challenge facing tiny Lakeside High School: For the past decade, fewer than half of its students have graduated. The rural public school located within the Coeur d'Alene Indian Reservation struggles with what administrators call excessive absenteeism and a lack of parental involvement.
News >  Idaho

Plummer-Worley hopes to build, remodel

The Plummer-Worley Joint School District is asking voters Tuesday to pass a $13.7 million bond levy to pay for a new high school and remodel existing school buildings so that all three schools can be on the same piece of land. The district wants to build a new high school, convert the present high school to a middle school and convert the current middle school to an elementary school.
News >  Idaho

NIC board discusses tuition, salaries, alcohol

Tuition, salaries and alcohol were big topics of discussion Wednesday night at the North Idaho College board meeting. Trustees passed a tuition schedule for the 2006-07 school year; heard the college president's response to faculty salary and benefit requests; and debated the possible merits and dangers of relaxing the college's alcohol policy.
News >  Idaho

Sonar may have found boater’s body

Searchers may have located the body of Spokane real estate broker Gary Fox, who fell off his boat into Lake Coeur d'Alene on Friday. But after about three hours of sweeping the lake bed on Wednesday, divers were unable to make a recovery. Windy weather on the surface and poor visibility deep in the water made the search difficult, said Sgt. Matt Street of the Kootenai County Sheriff's Marine Division.
News >  Idaho

NIC staff to request salary increase

North Idaho College's staff is asking for a 5.7 percent raise in salary to keep up with the costs of living. That request is one of several in a proposal that will go to the board at its meeting 6 p.m. today. Others include more vacation time; closing the campus the entire week of Thanksgiving, instead of only the last three weekdays; and increasing the percentage of insurance premium the college pays.
News >  Idaho

NIC to debate easing ban on alcohol

North Idaho College will start talking tonight about relaxing its campus alcohol policy. Board members Christie Wood and Mic Armon brought up the topic last month and said community groups have asked them about revisiting the ban on alcohol, allowing for fundraisers that serve drinks, for example.
News >  Idaho

Along with fun, festival offers chance for cultural exchange

The largest Latin festival in the Northwest will return to Post Falls on April 29 with folk dances, historic exhibits, piñatas and a burrito-eating contest. In an area where Caucasian residents can go about their days without ever interacting with a minority, La Fiesta-Cinco de Mayo is an opportunity to immerse in all things Hispanic.
News >  Idaho

CdA plans revise school attendance lines

About 100 children living in the north end of the Coeur d'Alene School District would be shifted to a different school next year, under proposals being considered by the district's attendance zone committee. Now that the remodel at Ramsey Elementary is nearing completion, that school has room to take students from more crowded neighboring schools: Skyway, Atlas and Hayden Meadows elementaries.
News >  Idaho

Nonini pushes parental permission policy

Rep. Bob Nonini visited the Coeur d'Alene school board meeting Monday and asked trustees to pass a policy that would require students to get parental permission before joining clubs at school. Nonini sponsored a bill to that effect in the Idaho Legislature this session. It passed in the House but stalled in the Senate Education Committee.
News >  Idaho

Grant will fund reading initiatives

The Lake Pend Oreille School District wants to see at least nine of every 10 of its students reading proficiently by 2009. And the district has $437,000 in grant money to fund the journey to that goal.
News >  Idaho

ISAT starts, and pressure’s on

Amber Myers needed to score 224 to pass the state's standardized reading test. She got 223 her freshman year. Then 221 and 220 the following years. This year is her last chance.
News >  Idaho

Memorial set for School Indigo founder

Though she came to Coeur d'Alene near the end of her life, Judie Brown left her mark on the town and hundreds of its residents. Friends and students of Brown's are planning to remember her on April 19 and want to make sure people whose lives she touched know about the gathering.
News >  Spokane

Girl Scout dads join cookie sales

In a lot of families, a man's place in Girl Scouting has more to do with eating cookies than selling them. This year, though, Scouting leaders in the Inland Northwest are trying to encourage more involvement from the men in Girl Scouts' lives.
News >  Idaho

Sandpoint panel chooses principal

A committee of administrators, teachers, students and parents has chosen Becky Kiebert to be the next principal at Sandpoint High School. The Lake Pend Oreille School Board will vote on the recommendation on Tuesday. If approved, Kiebert will replace Jim Soper, who is moving to Kansas.
News >  Idaho

Why did CdA’s levy fail?

The Coeur d'Alene School District will conduct a survey of residents in hopes of learning why a $40 million property tax levy failed in last month's election. The survey will serve as "a reality check, if you will, to make sure we're doing our homework as we should," said school board member Vern Newby, who sits on the district's long-range planning committee.
News >  Idaho

Baby inspires NIC nursing scholarship

North Idaho College nursing students are establishing a scholarship fund in remembrance of the 1-year-old daughter of a classmate who died in December. The Madelyn Isabella Sapp Memorial Scholarship will be given to second-year nursing students who are "struggling" emotionally or financially, said Dan Franklin, a classmate of the girl's father, Greg Sapp.
News >  Idaho

High school officially mercury-free

Lake City High School is officially clean of mercury vapors, as confirmed by two independent tests, Principal John Brumley said Monday. Students are back in classes this week after spring break and two extra days off before that, when the school was being evaluated and cleaned.
News >  Idaho

Young readers measure up

Local students read as well as their counterparts across the state, and even better in many instances. At least two-thirds of all Kootenai County students from kindergarten to third grade read at grade level, according to Idaho Reading Indicator scores that were released last week.
News >  Idaho

Sandpoint march marks meth’s toll

Cecilia Cecil could be the poster child for the anti-meth movement. The North Idaho teen said she grew up with methamphetamine, saw it firsthand in her home. Cecil said she once pretended to be asleep so she wouldn't have to decline a relative's offer of the highly addictive drug.
News >  Idaho

Spring break can be a springboard

Since she was a kid, Tiffany Wolf branded herself a member of the Class of 2006. When she got closer to graduation, though, things weren't exactly going as planned. She got fed up with the rigid order and structure of high school and dropped out for six months during her junior year.
News >  Idaho

IPods help build teens’ character

In the outside world, iPods are a technological fashion statement. The must-have portable music players provide a real-time soundtrack to the lives of a growing number of young people. On the inside, they're rewards for good behavior, given in 15-minute increments.
News >  Idaho

Students qualify for Idaho Geographic Bee

What country is bordered by the Gulf of Gdansk to the north and the Carpathian Mountains to the south? The Parthenon is an ancient temple on the Acropolis, a hill overlooking what European capital city?
News >  Idaho

Cleanup closes school 2nd day

Lake City High School in Coeur d'Alene is closed for the second day today as federal and local officials clean up traces of mercury a sophomore brought to school Monday. The student told Coeur d'Alene police he stole vials of Dispersalloy, a material used for fillings, from a storage closet at Dr. John Ukich's Coeur d'Alene dental office where he and his mother work as janitors. Ukich told police he didn't want to press theft charges.