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Mayor Markeeta Little Wolf
City of Waitsburg
The contractors are busy bringing Phase 1 of the Streetscape Project to completion in Waitsburg, which includes decorative pavers, historic streetlights and planters. Through the generosity of Jeff Broom and his sister, Joy L. Leisure, a large freestanding clock will be located on the sidewalk on Main in front of City Hall. However, lack of funding had put new trees on the back burner as a part of Phase 2.
At the July 16th City Council Meeting, I asked the council if the City should move forward with Phase 2 and purchase trees for the streetscape. Due to several projects not being done in 2008, funds had become available. The estimated total cost to the City was $35,000. After much discussion with citizens at the meeting and on the recommendation of the Waitsburg Community Revitalization Committee (WCRC), the council voted to proceed with new trees. There were eight people in attendance that night; four people donated the cost of a tree and six volunteered their time to plant them.
Since the July 16th meeting, things have escalated. Longtime Waitsburg neighbor and supporter, Ed Lawrence, donated $10,000 for the purchase and installation of the trees. With that gift and volunteer labor, the cost to the City will be reduced to $4,000.
Now a corps of Waitsburg volunteers plans to take the Main Street revitalization one step further. Council member Leroy Cunningham, business owners Jim German and Lupe Torres, along with 20 fellow citizen volunteers, have begun painting and restoring the facades of the buildings along Main Street. Gary's Paint and Dayton's City Lumber have donated paint and supplies. Other companies will supply paint at a reduced cost.
Why put time and effort into buildings that you don't own? Community pride. The City of Waitsburg has equity in its infrastructure, historic corridor, and mostly in its people.
As the Mayor of Waitsburg and a volunteer for this project, I endorse this effort and encourage fellow residents to join in. Simply stopping by and giving some words of encouragement to the crews would be appreciated. Main Street is going to shine better than ever and your help is needed.
Please contact Leroy Cunningham at (509) 386-4954 to learn more about how you can make a difference on Main Street.
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Jody Martin
Columbia County Health System
Have you wanted to become more fit, consume healthier foods or quit smoking? If you are employed by Columbia County Health Systems, these desires might become a reality with the help of a $15,000 grant awarded to CCHS from the Washington Health Foundation.
The intent of the grant is to develop a workplace wellness program— to make becoming healthy affordable, convenient, family-friendly and fun. Charlie Button, Columbia County Health System's CEO, feels that investing in employees' health is important to the organization. "I truly care about the health of our employees, and developing a workplace wellness program makes sense. We want to include all 113 employees and their families, and it is free to all that enroll."
A hospital wellness committee was organized in May. "We felt it was important to find a wellness program that our employees would use," Button stated. The wellness committee surveyed employees and prioritized the wellness program based on what employees wanted. Becoming fit, receiving education and having additional support ranked at the top of their needs.
CCHS dedicated the largest portion of grant money to the development of a "Wellness Room." The Wellness Room will be located in Booker Annex and will house a treadmill, elliptical machine, free weights and Universal Weight System. Employees and family member 18 years or older will have access.
The grant provides plenty of opportunity for learning. Two 6-week Healthy Habits campaigns will start in January and June. These classes are designed for weekly meetings to discuss, support and encourage healthy eating and weight loss (if desired).
The hospital's kitchen is involved too. They will provide nutritional information on foods served in the Touchet Valley Café. This will help employees and community members make informed choices about the caloric, fat and carbohydrate content of foods offered in the cafeteria.
Respiratory therapist, Jeff Huddle, is excited to introduce a tobacco-cessation program for employees and community members. Huddle, Janice Crane and Barbara Wilber received education from Washington Department of Health to provide tobacco-cessation support to CCHS employees, their family members and other folks in the community. "This is a great opportunity to improve each individual's health, and his/her long term quality of life," explained Huddle. The tobacco-cessation classes will start in January.
Becoming healthy and fit can be infectious and fun. Columbia County Health Systems hopes their employees will catch the wellness spirit. Wellness Rocks! It's your choice.
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Tanya Patton
Columbia County Rural Library District
One of my favorite things to do is discuss a book I've read with friends (or complete strangers) who have read the same one. Discussing favorite scenes or characters makes the book come alive again and invariably my experience and understanding are broadened by the thoughts and observations of the person I'm talking to. Books were made to share and reading doesn't have to be a solitary pursuit.
That's why I'm so pleased that Columbia County Rural Library District (CCRLD) director, Janet Lyon, pursued a "One Book" grant for our community. The objective of a One Book program is to draw a community together to read, reflect and respond to ideas raised by one good book. Many large urban library systems sponsor annual One Book programs. Titles are selected for the issues or themes they present that can draw a community together to discuss and, sometimes, heal or change.
The CCRLD One Book program is different in that it will focus on the youth of our community, instead of adults. The goal of Columbia County Kids Read is to promote the joy of reading to area youth by providing the opportunity for a shared reading experience outside of the classroom. A secondary goal is to develop partnerships with the schools in our community – public, private and homeschool.
In October, every 5th through 8th grader in the county will be given a signed copy of The House of Power, by best-selling author and Walla Walla resident, Patrick Carman. The House of Power is the first book of Carman's fantasy-based Atherton Series. The CCRLD staff will facilitate a variety of book discussions this fall and winter, including a special online discussion blog. In March, Patrick Carman will visit both Dayton and Starbuck public schools to talk about the book and answer questions. Carmen's books are published by Scholastic, Inc., and are very popular with kids in the target age group.
Columbia County Kids Read is funded by Library Service and Technology (LSTA) funds originating from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).
Encourage a kid to read for fun and, while you're at it, pick up a copy of The House of Power and share the
experience.
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Craig George
City of Dayton
Saturday, October 25th, will be the first Dayton City Clean-up Project. A coalition of congregations from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints will be in Dayton to do their annual community project. These volunteers come from Walla Walla, Pendleton, Pilot Rock, and Dayton and have been reaching out to area communities for the past four years. We feel very fortunate to have been selected this year.
Many areas of need will be addressed that day. The city is in the process of identifying specific projects for these 150+ volunteers to complete, and you may have already been approached by members of our community for project ideas and your help. We are looking at a time frame from 8 – 12 a.m. We are soliciting your help so that we can truly call this a community effort.
If you know of a specific project, such as simple exterior repairs or cleaning up a yard for an elderly neighbor or one who is physically unable, please contact Dayton City Hall, 382-2361, so that we may contact these individuals.
The church volunteers will furnish a tremendous amount of manpower, but the homeowner will be responsible for furnishing materials. If you cannot volunteer but would like to donate paint, brushes, etc., please call Dayton City Hall and they will be happy to take your donation.
This clean-up day is a wonderful opportunity for the entire community to come together and accomplish a great deal in a short amount of time. It is also an effort which builds community pride.
If you would like to volunteer to work on the 25th, please contact Dayton City Hall so that we can have an accurate number of workers. We will need this to disburse the needed number of workers to each particular location. The more volunteers we have, the more that will be accomplished.
Let's ALL pull together on the 25th and help "spruce up" Dayton.
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Shelly Franklin
Dayton Schools
Everyone talks about it, everyone seems to have an opinion about it, but just what is a WASL test?
Several years ago, I worked with a group of teachers and assessment specialists to write a version of the WASL reading test. I learned a lot about test construction and the scoring and intent of the WASL tests.
When measuring students' academic growth and depth of understanding of subject matter, it is important to realize that there are several ways that students can demonstrate their learning. The least difficult level is that of "recognition". Recognition is demonstrated through multiple-choice questions: questions followed by lists of possible answers. The test taker's task is to recognize the correct answer from the list of possible answers. Until recently, all PSAT and SAT tests were strictly multiple choice. WASL tests also include some multiple choice items. Multiple choice questions can, of course, be quite difficult.
The second level of understanding is demonstrated by "recall". Recall is typically measured using a "fill in the blank" style question. This is more difficult because a student must remember an answer without any visual cue. In other words, he has to pull it out on his own, from his ability to recall or remember, not simply recognize the correct response from a list.
The most difficult level of skill acquisition is demonstrated through "reproduction". With this type of test, a student must reproduce a product to show his understanding of a concept. One way a student can do this is to write an essay or explain his thinking strategies in writing. It is this deeper level of competency which the WASL test is designed to measure. This is also what has driven SAT test writers to recently include an essay as part of their test. WASL testing was originally conceived to measure not just student's recognition, or recall, but to encourage them to demonstrate their abilities to reproduce their thinking.
One of the major issues with a test such as WASL is that it is not a test that can be scored by a computer. It must be scored by an actual person who can read and score it reliably. This scoring by "real people" takes time and money. Test scorers must be trained and continually monitored to make sure that they are scoring the tests consistently.
Students in Dayton's schools can be proud of the fact that they have scored consistently above state averages on this most difficult type of test – the WASL.
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