The Edmonds School Board began Tuesday night’s meeting with two celebrations.

The school board and Superintendent Brossoit honored former Lynnwood City Councilman Loren Simmonds. Simmonds recently stepped down after 16 years on City Council. He spent eight of those years as City Council President.

While on City Council, Simmonds paved the way for several school district projects.

“Mr. Simmonds was instrumental in shepherding Lynnwood Place, the new Transportation and Maintenance site as well as several smaller projects through the Council that benefited future development plans for the Edmonds School District,” Superintendent Nick Brossoit said.

Simmonds said he enjoyed his time on City Council.

“I’m deeply honored to have served my community. It’s deeply satisfying to drive up the streets of my community and know that I helped,” he said.

Though Simmonds is no longer on Lynnwood City Council, he said he is “passing the baton” but not retiring. He is now looking for another organization to serve.

Next, seven teachers were honored for receiving their National Board Certification, which is the most prestigious certification in the country. Becoming certified is a voluntary process and requires candidates to write analytical reflections of their teachings, send in unedited tapes of class to be graded and pass a test.

The honored teachers were Christine Ballard from Cedar Valley Elementary, Corrine Daycross from Meadowdale High School, Kellie Dyer from Terrace Park Elementary, Ashley Hirst from Sherwood Elementary, Jean Kellogg from Lynnwood High School, Mari Knowles from Mountlake Terrace Elementary and Mary Woodman from Lynndale Elementary.

“Thank you for making that commitment and we are just so very proud of you and all that you’ve done,” School Board President Susan Phillips said.

After the celebrations, the school board was approached by three elementary school office managers who say it is not possible to complete the duties they are assigned to in a 40-hour work week.

Lauri Velasquez, the office manager at Beverly Elementary, said she has only worked 40 hours for one week since she started there four months ago.

“It takes an average two to three hours more per day to finish my tasks, and that’s not taking into account any emergencies that could pop up,” she said.

She encouraged board members to spend a day in the office of an elementary school to see the amount of work they are expected to do every day.

Pam Peters, office manager at Chase Lake Elementary, said it is rare for her to have an uninterrupted work day and that time adds up.

“Running an elementary school office is like running a small business,” she said. “There just aren’t enough hours in the day or week to get the work done that needs to be done.”

Peters said office managers are responsible for arranging substitutes, buying office supplies, managing new hires, handling disciplinary issues and providing services to parents and students who come in with questions, among several other duties.

Peters told a story about one incident she had when parents came in asking about how their child, a new student, could get to school safely. Peters showed them the road through the window and drew a map to make sure the parents felt safe sending their child to school.

“I never want someone to leave our office feeling confused or uncared about,” Peters said.

Mountlake Terrace Elementary’s office manager Cathy Fiorillo also addressed the school board, saying her office has been able to reduce the amount of work office managers are responsible for by hiring a few extra support staff members in the office.

At the end of the meeting, Brossoit asked for some meetings to be set up to discuss office manager concerns and possible solutions, as well as evaluate budgetary implications of hiring more office staff members.

Teresa Wittmann, a librarian at Westgate Elementary, addressed the school board about library funding. She said libraries are not equally funded across the district.

“Sixty percent of school libraries in our district do not get any taxpayer dollars and a lot of people are surprised by that,” she said. “Libraries need to rely on parent groups and grants to get the books they need.”

According to Wittmann, the average book in Edmonds school libraries was printed in 1997.

Wittmann did not have any specific questions or concerns, she just wanted to raise awareness of the inequity of school library funding in the Edmonds School District.

Several reports were also given at Tuesday night’s meeting. Details of those reports will be given in a second article to come soon.