Calvin Bratt
Tribune editor

  LAUREL -- Office and teaching staff may have to be reduced in the Meridian School District to deal with a budget shortfall of at least $460,000 for the current school year, Superintendent Tim Yeomans announced last week.
  Enrollment in the district's four schools is down 44 students from last year, and an additional decline of 32 students is projected for the 2008-09 academic year, Yeomans says in a district website message April 29. Lower enrollment means less state funding.

Mark Reimers
Tribune reporter

(back to front): Alcoa Intalco Works employees Bob Bird, Dan Timmer and Jason Swendt work at Fisher Elementary with mom
Gidget Gallegos.

LYNDEN -- Teacher Appreciation Week is in full flower at Fisher Elementary School where members of the Parent Volunteer Committee arranged to have the teachers' lounge decorated and refurbished over the weekend.

Kelly Heggum with Everybody Bikes directs the line of participants in a
bike rodeo at Lynden Christian Elementary School on Wednesday. From right are: Thane Boersema, his dad and school principal Jeff Boersema, Kristin Dick and Libby Hielkema. The children are first graders.

LYNDEN -- Ninety percent of bike helmets are broken or maladjusted. That's just one of the things that gets discovered at a school bike rodeo.

Calvin Bratt
Tribune editor

  LYNDEN -- About $2,400 was raised at a big garage sale on Thalen Drive Friday and Saturday, and the Lynden Destination Imagination Booster Club keeps working to get two teams to nationals in Knoxville May 21-24.
  Kids and parents will be packing gift boxes this Friday to be sold at school family fun nights later this month.
  A dinner and auction will be held May 17 at Isom Elementary School, said Lauri Rick, club president.

Mark Reimers
Tribune reporter

  LYNDEN -- Jeb Kratzig, a physical education teacher and coach at Lynden High School, has resigned from his positions, according to the March 27 meeting minutes of the Lynden School Board.
  The official minutes of the meeting were released last week.
  Kratzig is being investigated by the state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, after the Lynden School District filed a formal complaint on March 6. He was on paid administrative leave pending the result of the investigation.

Calvin Bratt
Tribune editor

  LYNDEN – An independent five-month study of the inner health of the Lynden School District paints a sobering picture of personnel ailments ranging from distrust of leadership to low staff morale to breakdown of communication.
  On a scale used by the evaluators, Lynden scores far in the negative when employees are asked if they would recommend the district as a place to work.

Mark Reimers
Tribune reporter

  LYNDEN -- Grace Barrios, a student at Lynden High School, was awarded an Honorable Mention for the Princeton Prize in Race Relations for the Western Washington area.
  Students applying were asked to submit essays outlining work they had done to improve race relations in their schools and communities.
  Barrios was recognized for her participation in the Conversational English for Latino Parents program, which consisted of intensive language classes to improve the literary skills of Spanish-speaking parents in the Lynden area.

Mark Reimers
Tribune reporter

  WENATCHEE -- Two teams from Lynden schools placed first at the state Destination ImagiNation competition in Wenatchee Saturday.
  Both teams may compete in the Global Finals in Knoxville, Tenn., May 21-24 if they can acquire the needed funds before then.
  Mary Roebuck, a teacher at Bernice Vossbeck Elementary School, said the teams will need to raise all the money on their own this year and they are in the process of forming a parent booster club. She estimated they would need to raise $10,000 per team to cover all expenses.