Schools serve more food than ever with spike in free and reduced lunch participation

Benjamin Woodard | WF

Fewer students are bringing milk money to school this year.

            Participation in the free and reduced fee meal program at nearly every school in the Bellingham School District has steadily increased since the recession began three years ago.

            “There has been a shift in the make up of the program,” said Mark Dalton, school district foodservice manager. “More students are taking advantage of free meals. When you get something for free, you use it a lot more.”

            Dalton said the school district is serving more food rather than more students. As students switch from buying lunches and bringing lunches from home, they tend to eat breakfast and lunch from the school cafeteria every day, he said, resulting in more food running through the school.

            Participation in the free and reduced fee lunches has increased nearly 5 percent district-wide in recent years. Alderwood Elementary, which historically has had the most participants, increased 9 percent from 2008 to 2009 to total 285 students.

            Kulshan Middle School participation has jumped more than 3 percent this year, setting a record at a total of 40 percent of the student body, or 237 students, eating free or reduced lunches.

            Kelly Bashaw, Bellingham School District board member and Whatcom Community College financial aid adviser, said the increase has not been a focus of discussion for the board.

            “Something we see is so many people losing their jobs, so more and more are going back to school,” she said. “A parent who is not working but going to school may be able to qualify for the program.”

Increase is a sign of the times

            Kulshan Parent-Teacher-Student Association co-president Teri McIntyre said the jump in participation is a main concern for the school because it indicates Bellingham families struggling financially.

            “This poses a problem for fundraising and also for parent involvement.” She said. “Parent involvement has decreased because many families are facing financial difficulties and do not have the time to be a part of the school.”

            She said one family, whose parents have been strong volunteers in the past, have stopped volunteering with the PTSA and are now working full time to pay the bills.

            Kulshan Middle School Principal Jeannie Hayden said that the increase in free and reduced lunch participants worries her because of the correlation between low-income families and low WASL (Washington Assessment of Student Learning) scores. From 2005 to 2009, students from low-income families have consistently scored lower than non-low-income students in reading, writing and math.

            “How do we meet the needs of kids if they come from families where they weren’t read to, or they weren’t well cared for? How do we meet them where they are?” Hayden said. “And it’s pretty significant if you have a school at poverty and a school that is high income. You are going to get different issues in terms of educating them.”

            At Kulshan, Hayden said a new schedule is going into effect for the 2010-11 school year that allows about a one-hour period — dubbed an “expansion period” — where students can take an elective class based on their personal learning abilities.

            “It’s a given that students learn at different rates, and they have different needs in terms of levels of support. Some kids are ready to fly. Bring it on, and they’ll take it,” she said. “An expansion for them might be an advanced communication or an advanced math. For others, it might be specific reading support.”

New state requirements boost participation           

            Federal requirements change every year for the free and reduced fee lunch program based on inflation, unemployment and other economic factors. Currently, in order for a family to qualify for free lunches, it must make less than $28,664 a year, or 130 percent of the national poverty level. For reduced lunches, the level is higher at 185 percent, or $40,793.

            Two years ago, the state changed requirements for the Department of Social and Health Services programs, which allows those making 200 percent of the national poverty level to obtain food stamps, Dalton said. Under the lunch program, any family using food stamps gets immediate access to free lunches at schools.

            “Honestly, for the family of two, it comes to about a thousand dollars a year to buy school lunches [at full price],” Dalton said, “so, for a family, it is a lot of money. And feeding kids is an import goal. I have no qualms with that.”


Interesting links:
Raw data for student and school participation

2009-10 Income Guidelines

Additional free and reduced fee program information

Bylaws committee fleshes out neighborhood purpose

Benjamin Woodard | NN

            More than a month has passed since the residents of the Whatcom Falls Neighborhood voted to form a neighborhood association.

            The committee met at 6:30 p.m. on June 1 at Greenacres-Moles Family Funeral Home on Lakeway Drive.
            And the bylaws committee is off the ground as paperwork will be filed with Washington state to become a registered nonprofit, which will solidify the associations validity with the City of Bellingham.

            Richard Etter, temporary chair of the unofficial Whatcom Falls Neighborhood Association, provided copies of Fairhaven, Sehome and King Mountain Neighborhood Association bylaws to facilitate discussion.

            Ann McCartney, a consultant hired by the city to advise birthing neighborhood associations how to form bylaws, met with the committee to answer any questions the committee might have. Recently, she helped form the King Mountain Neighborhood Association’s bylaws.

            “I have seen a bunch of miserable bylaws,” McCartney said, “so I really want to help groups out to make bylaws that are useful to them — readable — not in lawyerese, but in plain English.”

            Through lively discussion, the committee members drafted the first section of the bylaws, which states the purpose of the organization. The members suggested these points to guide their association:

·      to build a sense of community

·      to emphasize the neighborhood plan

·      to properly disperse information to the neighborhood

·      to maintain the character of the neighborhood

·      to increase public safety and traffic

·      to maintain the quality of life or the improvement of the quality of life

Bullet-proof truss moved in over pipeline

Benjamin Woodard | NN

A crane operator lowered an 85-foot-long steel truss onto the exposed section of pipeline running across Whatcom Creek on Tuesday, May 25.

            For the last three weeks, two sections of trails on either side of the creek have been cordoned off in Whatcom Falls Park as crews drilled pilings into the creek bed to support the truss. The lowering of the structure marks the end of construction, tagged at about $1.3 million at the expense of the Olympic Pipe Line Company.

            The nearly 150-foot tall crane was operated by an experienced crewmember that placed the truss within a 1-inch window, said Pamela Brady, an Olympic Pipe Line Company employee who works with landowners about land-use concerns.

            “I asked the crane operator if it felt like she was doing surgery rather than operating a crane,” Brady said, “and she said, ‘absolutely, yes. It was very precise.’”

            The pipeline, which moves 290,000 barrels of fuel per day, has a long and checkered history with Whatcom Creek. In 1999, the pipeline leaked thousand of gallons of fuel into the creek. The fuel was inadvertently ignited, sending a fireball 1.5 miles downstream that killed three. Two boys burned to death, and a man fishing in the creek was overcome with fumes and drowned. 

Pipeline shut down

            Olympic Pipe Line Company shut down the pipeline in two places — a procedure called a “double block” — Tuesday at noon, Brady said. The pipeline was turned back on after crewmembers secured the main section of the truss. The whole process of lifting the truss and setting it over the pipeline took about an hour. 

            Two more small sections will be installed within the next few days, and trails will be opened soon after, Brady said.            

Blast prompts efforts

            Since the pipeline explosion, the Olympic Pipe Line Company has worked with the City of Bellingham to prevent another rupture, Brady said.

            The company signed an agreement with the city that required the company to bore under the creek to bury the pipeline, City of Bellingham Environmental Planner Kim Weil said. But after the company surveyed the bedrock underneath the creek, the bedrock proved too thick, and the necessary drill would have upset the watershed, Weil said, so the city agreed to let the company cover the exposed portion of the pipeline with a truss.

            David Lykken, director of pipeline safety for the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission, keeps tabs on private pipeline companies throughout Washington state to ensure they follow federal regulations. He said a handful of pipelines in western Washington go aboveground because of steep terrain.

            “I am not aware of an instances where trees have fallen on exposed pipeline,” Lykken said.

            He said the commission does not force private companies to cover exposed pipeline.

Park receives no complaints

            Before Olympic Pipe Line Company began constructing the steel truss, the company requested to remove a few trees near the exposed portion, Weil said. 

            An arborist with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife disagreed with removing any old growth forest near the creek, she said, so the city agreed to a truss.

            Since the trails closed in Whatcom Falls Park, no one has complained.

            “It was kind of surprising because we usually can’t close down one trail for an hour without people complaining,” said Clayton Snyder, a Bellingham Parks and Recreation Department employee who overlooks the trails in Whatcom Falls Park. “Maybe it’s because they realize it’s for the safety of the pipeline — people are pretty pipeline-explosion jittery around here.”

            During the construction, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife tested the water to ensure that construction materials did not harm fish. Jeff Kamps, habitat biologist with the department, said the creek’s water quality did not change. 

            “From my general observations, they didn’t have that span of pipeline in very good condition,” Snyder said, who is also a former pipeline engineer. “It reminded me of oil fields with no governmental control, but it’s been a pretty fun project for me, and [Olympic] addressed all our concerns.”

Survey lends glimpse into neighborhood concerns

Benjamin Woodard | NN

            By the end of June, the blossoming Whatcom Falls Neighborhood Association will meet for a second time to tackle a list of issues and concerns.

            Temporary association secretary Iain Davidson has set up a Google group and website to facilitate communication between residents. Within that group, he distributed a survey of top issues, most of which were brought up in the first neighborhood meeting.

            Davidson said a total of 16 residents responded so far. The topic with the most votes was neighborhood growth and development. The second most pertinent topic was a neighborhood plan review and update.

            The survey allowed residents to suggest other topics. A common suggested topic was traffic safety on San Juan Boulevard.

            Davidson said that in the next meeting, the neighborhood will decide which topics have enough support to sustain subgroups.

City: no funding available for needed crosswalks, sidewalks

Benjamin Woodard | NN

            Ica Enriquez crosses Electric Avenue every day.

            She, her husband Sam Schragel, and her five children have lived on Electric for two years, and ever day they cross the street to Whatcom Falls Park, to the bus stop, to Lafeen’s or to take the two youngest children to Carl Cozier Elementary.

            Every day, they are worried of being hurt along the heavy-traffic street.

            Enriquez and Schragel are not alone in their traffic concerns.

            Members of the Whatcom Falls Neighborhood Association are lobbying the City of Bellingham to install sidewalks and crosswalks along Electric Avenue and Lakeway Drive. Temporary neighborhood association secretary Iain Davidson sent an e-mail to residents, requesting volunteers to spearhead an effort to fund traffic-safety projects along Electric Avenue and Lakeway Drive.

City has more projects than funding

            According to Bellingham’s comprehensive city plan, the intersection of Electric Avenue and Birch Street at the Whatcom Falls Park entrance is slated for pedestrian and bicycle traffic improvements

            “It comes down to funding,” said city Transportation Options Coordinator Kim Brown. “Those [projects] have been identified — we would love to do it, if we could get the funding.”

            Brown said the city used $350,000 from federal economic stimulus to install five crosswalks with flashing warning lights in 2009, including one on Lakeway Drive.

            The city wants to do the sidewalks and crosswalks when it fixes a water main on Electric Avenue, but there is no funding to do any of it, she said.

            According to a list of projects outlined by Bellingham’s now-defunct Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee, Electric Avenue and Lakeway Drive need safety improvements. The committee recommends sidewalks on Electric Avenue, bike lanes on both sides of the road and a speed limit reduction from 35 mph to 25 mph because of drivers not following the speed limit. At the beginning of the year, the committee was replaced by the Transportation Commission.

            On May 5, the city issued an updated draft of the Transportation Improvement Program, which lists projects for the city to complete in the next five years. These projects are prioritized based on what grants are available from the state and what Bellingham residents need the most, Brown said. No projects pertaining to the Whatcom Falls Neighborhood are on that list, and no proposals have been received from neighborhood residents.

            Brown said neighborhood residents can apply for grants, but they are usually no more than $2,000.

            “The types of funding you would need for a sidewalk project or a crosswalk, you’re looking at maybe starting at $100,000 and going up,” Brown said.

Pedestrian-orientated community lacking, residents say

            Enriquez said she wants the neighborhood to cater pedestrians, rather than cars.

            “We have a school and we have a major park, and we don’t have that element at all,” she said.

            Schragel and Enriquez said they have seen many accidents in front of their house at Electric Avenue and Lakeway Drive.

            “We had a party here and at about one or two in the morning some guy smashed a city sign down the road. We hear ‘crash, crash.’ The guy goes bolting through here,” Schragel said, pointing to Electric Avenue. “And the next day me and my kids walking to the park saw the sign destroyed, mangled, dragged down the road a few feet.”

            Enriquez said she wants flashing crosswalk on Electric Avenue because cars won’t stop for her daughter, especially in the winter when it becomes darker earlier.

            “We need some semi-major traffic revisions around here,” Schragel said.

            Enriquez said the heavy traffic keeps her and her children from freely moving around the neighborhood.

            “It does keep us from sending them to the park more. I don’t feel good about telling them to go to the park together because I can’t say, ‘use the crosswalk,’ because there just isn’t one,” Enriquez said.

Kulshan students cross unmarked street

            Teri McIntyre, president of Kulshan Middle School PTSA, said a lot of children walk across Lakeway Drive before and after school. There is a crosswalk at Kenoyer Drive to get over Lakeway Drive, but students walk east toward Electric Avenue and cross at the busy intersection of Electric Avenue and Lakeway Drive.

            “I don’t believe we’ve had any students hurt on Lakeway,” McIntyre said. “I’ve seen close calls, but I don’t think we’ve had a traffic incident.”

            Jeannie Hayden, Principal of Kulshan Middle School, said the lack of a crosswalk at Lakeway Drive and Electric Avenue is a problem, even though there is a crosswalk at Kenoyer Drive and Lakeway Drive.

            “It worries me that the kids jet across Lakeway,” she said.

            A public hearing will be held on May 24 in the Bellingham City Council Chambers on 210 Lottie St. at 7 p.m. to discuss the Transportation Improvement Program projects. 

Residents agree on neighborhood association rebirth

Whatcom Falls neighborhood residents sign in at the first neighborhood meeting since 2006. | photo courtesy of Clayton Petree

Benjamin Woodard | NN 

            Community-wide scars may be finally healing in the Whatcom Falls Neighborhood as a neighborhood committee sutures old disagreement between residents and the City of Bellingham.

            About 40 people voted on April 27 to revive the Whatcom Falls Neighborhood Association, which had dissolved nearly four years ago. The vote kicked off a lengthy process for neighborhood residents to set up bylaws, appoint board members and become a Washington state nonprofit organization.

            “To me, that shows that some of the wounds are healing,” said Linda Stewart, Neighborhood and Special Projects Coordinator for the city. “There are folks who are willing to start over again and that is very encouraging to me.”

            The Whatcom Falls Neighborhood Association dissolved in late 2006 after the City of Bellingham approved some development in the area. Hard feelings about the decision sparked unrest and disunity among the board members.

            During the April 27 meeting, residents voted on a temporary chair for the association and a committee to form the neighborhood’s bylaws. The bylaws will govern how the association interacts with the city and neighborhood residents.

            Now, 22 of the 24 neighborhoods in Bellingham have a neighborhood association — or one in the works. The Meridian and Western Washington University Neighborhoods do not.

            In early February, neighborhood resident Clayton Petree said his concerns about the lack of a crosswalk at the intersection of Electric Avenue, Birch Street and the Whatcom Falls Park entrance moved him to ask the city how he could be a representative on the Mayor’s Neighborhood Advisory Committee. The committee meets once a month with a representative from every neighborhood, but the catch is that a neighborhood must have an association in order to be represented.

            Petree, 36, has lived in Bellingham most of his life. He said he felt the Whatcom Falls Neighborhood was underrepresented.

            “The most important thing is that everybody can feel like they have somewhere to go to talk about their issues,” Petree said. “If the neighborhood decides to go do something that I don’t necessarily agree with, at least I had my say.”

A solution hinges on an association

            Petree was first involved with a neighborhood association in the Lettered Streets Neighborhood. He said the association was up-to-date and communicated with its neighbors. For the last three years he has lived in the Whatcom Falls Neighborhood. 

            Richard Etter, temporary chair of the unofficial Whatcom Falls Neighborhood Association, moved from Utah to Bellingham two years ago. He attended the monthly Mayor’s Neighborhood Advisory Committee meetings, received training from the city about neighborhood associations and used his 30-year not-for-profit administrative experience to organize the first Whatcom Falls Neighborhood meeting in about four years.

            He said his motivation was to gain representation at the city level because every neighborhood is fighting for city resources.

            “There is only so much to go around — and right now there is not nearly as much as there used to be — so for our neighborhood not to have representation means that some important safety things for our neighborhood might not get addressed,” Etter said. “It was a no-brainer for me.”

The city pushed for two years to form an association

            Stewart said she was in contact with people from the Whatcom Falls Neighborhood for two years before the April 27 meeting.

            “It’s been difficult for me to find, in the last [two years], people working together across the neighborhood,” she said.

            Stewart said she found disagreements and hard feelings between residents in all parts of the neighborhood that stalled the success of a neighborhood association. From the previous debacle with the city, she said many residents were not ready to come back together as an association, but the recent meeting suggested a renewal of relationships.

            During the meeting, Cam Couch, Raymond Street resident and member of the old association, spoke about concerns over a new association following the same track as the latter.

            Discussion about development in the neighborhood came up multiple times.

            “I have lived in this neighborhood for 56 years, and I am 56 years old,” Couch said during the meeting. “If I had it my way, half of you wouldn’t be here today.”

            Stewart said the whole process of becoming an association might take six to eight months.

            “I think they are on the right track,” she said.

            If the Whatcom Falls Neighborhood Association makes it through the process, they will receive $500 from the city per year to aid in such association-related expenditures as renting meeting places, printing and distributing newsletters, registering a domain name and erecting neighborhood signs, Stewart said. Last year, the amount was $1,000, but the city has cut back amid the recession.

A fresh neighborhood pulls together a fresh association

            On March 6, 2009, The King Mountain Neighborhood, east of Guide Meridian Road near Bellis Fair Mall, was annexed by the City of Bellingham, according to a city press release.

            Stewart was heavily involved with forming the King Mountain Neighborhood Association.

            Stewart said a unified group of people pushed the city to annex the neighborhood, and afterward pushed for a neighborhood association to gain representation at the city level. With a unified group already in place, it took them eight months.

            She said the Whatcom Falls Neighborhood bylaws committee will look at bylaws from many neighborhoods, including the King Mountain Neighborhood, while constructing its own.

            Also, an independent, city-contracted neighborhood association consultant will be sitting in on the neighborhood’s bylaws committee meetings to offer advice.

            Communication and community involvement is a first priority for Etter and the bylaws committee. He said he wants to take his time forming the bylaws, so that they don’t fail in serving the community.

            “I’ve seen it in other associations, the leadership falls to four or five people or even a dozen people, but they are the same people over and over and over again,” Etter said. “After a while, it atrophies.” 

Neighborhood concerns voiced by residents at the April 27 neighborhood meeting:

• Development on Galbraith Mountain
• Single-family zone enforcement
• Developers not following the neighborhood plan
• Lack of green space in new developments
• Neighborhood character jeopardized by development
• Raymond Street connecting to Lopez Street
• Lack of crosswalk at the intersection of Birch Street, Electric Avenue and the Whatcom Falls Park entrance.

85-foot-long steel truss to span Whatcom Creek pipeline

Benjamin Woodard | NN

Bullets and falling trees won’t have a chance to penetrate the pipeline over Whatcom Creek after crews construct an 85-foot-long steel truss over the aboveground line.

Beginning May 3, two trails will be closed for about three weeks on both sides of the creek so that crews can construct the truss and move in a crane, which will eventually lower the protective structure over the pipeline.

“Anything they can do to protect the pipeline is beneficial to both the people and the park,” Birch Falls Drive resident Richard Etter said.

The project will take about three weeks to complete by subcontractors for the Olympic Pipe Line Company, City of Bellingham Environmental Planner Kim Weil said.

The pipeline, which moves 290,000 barrels of gasoline per day, has a long and checkered history with Whatcom Creek. In 1999, the pipeline leaked thousand of gallons of gasoline into the creek. The fuel was inadvertently ignited, sending a fireball 1.5 miles downstream that killed a young man and two boys.

Cam Couch, 55, said he has lived on Raymond Street for most of his life.

“It’s pretty exposed there, so it’s a good idea to cover it up,” Couch said. “A tree has never fallen on it in my lifetime, but it could happen.”

Crews face environmental restrictions

Because the construction crews will be working directly above the creek and along the shore, Olympic Pipe Line Company had to obtain a shoreline permit. The permit allows construction crews to work alongside water habitats that are susceptible to chemicals associated with construction sites, Weil said.

Jeff Kamps, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Habitat Biologist, said crews will install a system of eight small piles to support the truss, and any gaps in the holes they drill will be filled with grout. The grout may leak through the sandstone bedrock and into the watershed, he said.

“With the steep banks [of the creek], the potential for spills is a main concern,” he said.

Weil said the department will closely monitor the project with periodic water sampling, and if a spill occurs, the project will be halted.

Before the city approved the truss, a 30-day comment period opened for community discussion about the project. In that period, the city sent 100 letters to residents living within 500 feet of Whatcom Falls Park. Three people responded to the letters with requests to be updated about the project, and no other concerns were raised, Weil said.

Olympic continues pipeline improvements

Since the pipeline explosion in 1999, Olympic Pipe Line Company has worked with the City of Bellingham to mitigate a rupture from happening again, said Pamela Brady, a Right of Way Specialist from Olympic Pipe Line Company, who works with landowners about land-use concerns.

Brady said the initial plan for the exposed pipeline in Whatcom Creek was to bore under the creek, but the company found that the bedrock would be at risk of fracturing and leaking chemicals from the drilling process.

The steal truss supported by piles is the least invasive option, Brady said, and the drilling will be done with an air-powered drill instead of one powered with hydraulic fluid, which has the potential to leak.

“Since the [pipeline] incident in 1999, we took a comprehensive look at the pipeline system,” Brady said. “We’ve made a number of improvements over the years and this installment runs right along that same idea.”