August 2007

Seattle Public Schools' principals were the students last week as the new superintendent, who pulled out names on Popsicle sticks, quizzed them on best practices at the Summer Leadership Institute, a two week professional development session.

Maria Goodloe-Johnson began her tenure as Seattle's new superintendent of public schools last month and has been moving forward with her entry plan, which includes sharing her "strategic vision" with district staff and faculty.

"Our work is about teaching and learning. Bottom line.

Design disagreements between a developer who wants to demolish a popular restaurant and the West Seattle Design Review Board over a planned California Avenue project struck a familiar theme of urban versus suburban.

Developer Tom Lee wants to tear down the Charlestown Street Caf

Residents of Westwood Heights, diverse in age, race, and income level, celebrated 24th annual National Night Out recently with a barbeque, steel drum one-man-band, and children's bicycle parade. Community leaders, and a resident, gave speeches touting the achievements of that neighborhoods seven-year revitalization project, located on 27th Avenue Southwest between Roxbury and Cambridge avenues Southwest.

Once a crime-ridden drug den, the area is now safe and tidy.

Members of the Total Experience Gospel Choir and other local performers raised a joyful noise to benefit victims of Hurricane Katrina on a recent Sunday.

The choir, led by Pastor Pat Wright, raised $5,900 to buy a roof for a homeless family in Mississippi.

The all-day event was held at Kenyon Hall and featured performances by the Total Experience Gospel Choir and four other local performers. All attendees, including the musicians, were asked to donate $5 a head for admission, and $2 dollars each for all food items.

Swedish Hospital affiliated headache specialist and West Seattle resident Dr. Sheena Aurora recently received the prestigious Harold G. Wolff Lecture Award at the American Headache Society's 49th-annual Scientific Meeting in Chicago.

The award is given annually to that person who contributes the best original paper on headache, head or face pain, or on the nature of pain itself. The title of her award-winning paper was "Brainstem and Cortical Dysfunction in Chronic Migraine; Evidenced by Neurophysiological and Positron Emission Tomography."

Dr.

Tony Ive was selected to participate in the Economics for Leaders program that was conducted at the University of San Francisco recently.

Tony is one of 33 students from around the country who was honored by being accepted into the Foundation for Teaching Economics' San Francisco Economics for Leaders program. All of the students were selected because they have demonstrated excellent leadership potential.

Southwest Youth and Family Services will received a city technology matching grant of $8,100 for its computer lab.

Low-income teens working to re-enter high school and English language learners will attend computer-based instruction at the agency's Southwest Computer Lab to improve technology skills and academic achievement in math, science and writing.

The projects will offer participants the chance to learn essential workforce skills, explore community issues, practice Internet safety, gain citizenship skills and increase access to student information from Seattle Publi

The owner of a neighboring home called a local man and asked to cut trees on the man's lot. The lot owner said no. But within the last six weeks, the trees have been "topped," and the neighbor's home has been put up for sale, presumably with an improved view.

A fisheries experiment being conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was ruined last week when someone moved around a bunch of equipment that had been set up near Fauntleroy Creek inside the West Seattle Golf Course.

Spud and Neptune spent Friday at Alki Beach, napping in the sand. This was Spud's fifth morning in a row. At six weeks old, he was already an old hand. Neptune was only three or four days old, and this was his first day at the beach.

They are baby harbor seals. It's birthing season in Puget Sound.

Byron Gaines set up a perimeter around where Neptune lay with orange traffic pylons and yellow caution tape.

"I've been seeing them for the last three or four years," said Gaines, an employee with the Seattle Parks Department.

If you find a harbor seal pup on the beach, do not approach it closely. Call the Northwest Marine Mammal Stranding Network, at 1-800-526-6733, to report where and when you found the animal, and what condition it is in. You can volunteer to "seal sit," by watching over the pup from nearby, keeping other people and their dogs away, and educating the public.

Kristin Wilkinson, coordinator for the network, will offer training on what people can do - and should do - when they find a seal pup on the beach. Her free presentation will be 2 p.m., Wednesday, August 22, at the Bathhouse.