West Seattle Montessori School at 11215 15th Ave s.w. has been chosen as one of three schools in the nation to host a Pardoned Turkey All-School Assembly at the Delridge Community Center at 4501 Delridge Way s.w. on the morning of November 15.

Barbara Chatten McNichols, a lower elementary teacher at the school said, "It's a project the entire school is involved in and very excited about. Our middle schoolers took over classrooms today to do some student-family work where they were working with the youngest pre-schoolers, through elementary and upper elementary. We made turkey headbands. We voted on names for the turkeys and we learned a turkey song. We're also hoping to be able to do a recitation of another turkey poem, and be doing American Sign Language with that. We're making posters."

Each year, two turkeys are chosen to be sent to the White House for the President’s Thanksgiving dinner. Starting in 1989, with George H. W. Bush, the turkeys were formally “pardoned” from the traditional meal.

This year, the two birds were hatched July 10 at Foster Farms in California.

They will be flown to Washington, D.C. to meet the President and for the historic ceremony after visiting three schools (two in Washington and one in California), and will then live the rest of their lives on a farm in Mt. Vernon.