Governor Quizzes Sheridan Elementary Students

When 12-year-old Alyssa Arellano spoke with Gov.

Gary Locke last week, he seemed surprisingly friendly.

“Way more friendly than I thought he would be,” she said.

Alyssa, president of the Sheridan Elementary’s Associated Student Body, was one of 16 class representatives who met the governor at his Spokane press conference last week. Locke was in Spokane last Thursday to promote a proposal currently in the Legislature that would allow school districts to keep millions of dollars in property tax instead of sending it to Olympia.

Locke pitched his plan to 100 educators, reporters and parents in the Sheridan Elementary library, but high fives for the kids were the first order of business.

“He seemed to be a real child person,” said student-body adviser Cindy Gilson. “He really took the time to make them feel welcome and important.”

After the conference, the governor asked the student leaders some questions.

“How would you like summer school?” Locke asked. His plan would allow schools to use the money for summer school, among other things.

That question didn’t go over too well. Summer school isn’t high on most students’ priority list.

Locke tried again.

“What about fun after-school programs? What kinds of things would you like to do after school?,” he said.

That sounded better, and the students quickly suggested chess, science, art and math clubs. “I thought it was a pretty good idea,” Alyssa said afterward. “I like art and music, and it would be good to do that more.”

Good-bye cartons, hello pouches

Elementary school lunches are getting a new look.

Sure, the hamburgers are still round, but the milk containers are, well, squishier.

About half of Spokane School District 81’s elementary schools are making a switch from familiar paper cartons to new Mini-Sip milk pouches. Principals were given the option to change.

Cartons and pouches each hold 8 ounces of milk. Officials say the pouches take less energy to produce and create much less waste; more than 100 empty pouches can fit into one empty milk carton.

Westview Elementary School was one of the first District 81 schools to welcome the pouches to its lunchroom Jan. 19.

“It seemed to make a lot of sense,” said Principal Midge McGilvray. “And if it didn’t work, I knew we could go back” to cartons.

Instead of opening a spout or the entire top of a carton, students poke a pointed straw directly into the pouch. It takes a bit of practice to get the straw in, but representatives from Inland Northwest dairies are spending time with classes teaching kids the finer points of pouch poking.

Scholarship open to Moran grads

Moran Prairie Elementary School wants to give one college-bound alumnus $1,000.

For the third year, the school is offering a cool grand to a graduating high school senior who attended the elementary school’s fourth, fifth and sixth grades.

The Parent Teacher Group scholarship is awarded based on scholastic ability, school and community involvement, essays and recommendations. The money will be sent directly to the graduate’s school of choice.

Last year’s winner, Kathryn Kafentzis, graduated from Moran Prairie in 1993 and is attending Rutgers University in New Jersey.

Chase students get serious visitor

The 80-year-old Jewish woman in front of Chase Middle School seventh-graders Monday spoke with a soft Polish accent using measured words.

“The story I’m going to tell is not a very happy story,” she said quietly.

Actually, it was horrific.

The woman, who asked that her name not be published, was born in 1920 in Poland. In 1939, Nazis invaded and, for six years, she endured the Holocaust.

Social Studies teacher Carol Wanamaker invites the woman often to speak to world geography students. As the kids learn about Israel and Europe, Wanamaker teaches them the history of World War II and, particularly, the Holocaust.

For an hour, the woman described the humiliation, hurt and death suffered by millions of Jews in their towns and, later, at Nazi work and death camps.

During the initial occupation, Nazis set curfews and forced Jews into labor, she said.

“They made us clean the sidewalks with rags. If we ran out of rags, they made us use our underwear,” she said.

In six years, 6 million Jews were killed, including most of the woman’s family. Her father died of malnutrition and dysentery, she said, and her brother was shot by the Gestapo.

Eventually she was sent to the death camps.

“We were put into cattle cars for a week - no food, water or sanitary facilities,” the woman said. “No human eye should see a picture like that - dead children, people slipping in their own feces.”

When they arrived, the camp was still miles away, and although exhausted and cramped, the Jews were force to walk.

“Anyone who couldn’t make it was shot,” she said.

Luckily, she said, she was transferred from the death camp to a work camp. When the Russians advanced on that position in 1945, the Germans fled and she was liberated.

“Remember, this was not carried out by street hoodlums but by intelligent, educated people,” she said.

When the bell rang, the small, stooped woman begged for some more time. She had one more thing to tell the room full of children.

“This is my message to you: Be your brother’s keeper. Protect other people.

“Do not hate, because hate destroys.”

Adams to celebrate diversity

Like most schools, Adams Elementary is a jambalaya of ethnicities - Ethiopian, Croatian, Irish, Russian, Chinese.

The school will celebrate diversity Wednesday at its first-ever Taste of Culture celebration.

The event, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., will feature ethnic food, entertainment and student presentations.

“Mainly, we want to understand and know each other better and appreciate our likenesses and differences,” said Principal Patricia Lynass.

Staff writer Kristen Kromer contributed to this report.