Walla Walla Public Schools
Week in Review - February 2, 2007

In this Issue:

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School board work session and meeting Tuesday
Meetings date: Tuesday, February 6

School Board work session: School board members have scheduled a public work session at 6 p.m. to further study advantages and disadvantages of implementing a K-12 Common Collaboration schedule.

School Board meeting: 7:30 p.m. (regularly scheduled meeting)

Location: Board Room - District Office (364 S. Park Street)
Open to public


Edison ballots must be postmarked by Tuesday
Ballots for the Edison bond issue must be postmarked by Feb. 6 to be counted.

Visit the district’s website for Edison Bond Information: www.wwps.org.


Mother Nature impacts school this week
Tuesday icy road conditions caused Walla Walla Public Schools to delay school two hours and alter school bus service. Icy conditions also limited school bus service to rural routes on Thursday.

If school is delayed or closed due to poor weather, notices will be posted on the school district website (www.wwps.org) by 6:30 a.m. and be updated throughout the day as needed.

Announcements are also made on local radio and TV stations beginning at 6:00 a.m. If no announcement is made by 6:30 a.m., you should assume schools are running on time.

If there is a 2-hour delay, there will be no A.M. Preschool (no Preschool on Fridays) and no breakfast services. All schools will start two hours after the normally scheduled start times. Homelink will start at 10 a.m.


Prospect Point’s Carolyn Dietzman named February’s Staff Spotlight Employee of the Month
Congratulations to Prospect Point’s Carolyn Dietzman for being named this month’s Staff Spotlight Employee of the Month. As the school’s health clinician, Carolyn is someone the students can always count on to make them feel better.

Place of Work - Prospect Point
Job Title - Health Clinician
Years in District - 17
Birth Place - Seattle, WA
High School - Chief Sealth
College - University of Washington
Favorite Food - Chocolate or whatever berries are in season
Favorite Movie - Little Miss Sunshine
Favorite Musician - Nora Jones
Favorite Book - “Curve of Time” by Muriel Wylie Blanchet
What do I love most about my job? Helping students with health challenges stay in class and get the most out of their educational experience.
Hobbies - Tai Chi practice, Kayaking, gardening
Most Memorable life experience - Piloting an airplane -- my first solo flight
Tell us something about yourself that nobody else would know - I was on a trek in Peru and went over a 15,000 foot pass.


Wa-Hi FBLA teams perform strong at regional conference
Wednesday the 16 members of the Walla Walla High School chapter of Future Business Leaders of America competed in the Southeast Regional Winter Conference at the Yakima Convention Center where several students placed in the top five in their various events. Wa-Hi FBLA chapter members earned 17 places in 13 different events.

This event was attended by several hundred high school students from throughout Wa-Hi’s region. The following students placed in the top five in their various events, and are automatically eligible to compete in the state competition on April 5-7 in Spokane (order of finish in parenthesis):

- Laura Barnes: Business Law (5), Public Speaking II (5)
- Andy Bell: Banking and Financial Systems (2)
- Nathan Christen: Technology Concepts (1)
- Kehnin Dyer: C++ Programming (1), Java Programming (2), Networking Concepts (2)
- Marina Marin: Accounting II (4)
- Phuong Pham: Job Interview (2)
- Michelle Reardon: Impromptu Speaking (5), Word Processing I (4)
- Cylene Sana: Accounting II (5)
- Kristina Smith: Public Speaking II (2)
- Thomas Suckow: Java Programming (1), Networking Concepts (1), Visual Basic (1)
- Claudia Vargas: Business Math (2)

Other competitors: Renee Eggart, Brianne Javaux, Stella Miranda, Josimar Nateras, and Kelsie Trejo. The FBLA advisors are Scott Reardon and Karen Dazell.


Walla Walla College sponsors IPOD Inventor to speak during Engineers Week
The inventor of the Macintosh II computer and one of the “co-inventors” of the original iPod is being sponsored by the Walla Walla College School of Engineering to visit the area and present to the community.

Michael Dhuey, 2005 Design News Engineer of the Year nominee, will present “From the iPod to TelePresence” at 6:30 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 22, in the Reid Campus Center on the Whitman College campus.

Dhuey worked at Apple, Inc. for 25 years, where he was the hardware designer behind many famous products, including the Apple III, Lisa, Macintosh, and wildly popular iPod. He currently works at Cisco where he has been assisting the company’s design team on the TelePresence system, a new, state-of-the-art high-definition video conferencing system.

“The role engineers play in creating the context we live in and the tools or toys we use each day is often not visible or well understood,” says Larry Aamodt, dean of the Edward F. Cross School of Engineering. “During Engineers Week we seek to increase awareness of engineering and its importance. I am excited that Apple innovator Michael Dhuey will share his engineering experiences with us this year.”

Dhuey began programming at age 14 at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and was working as a programmer at Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance two years later. Dhuey holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He also holds 13 U.S. patents and is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM).

Tickets for the Engineering Dinner and Dhuey’s presentation are available for $30, $15 for students. Please call (509) 527-2765 to reserve your spot by noon on February 16.