Superintendent McDuffy tours schools with community members


Edmonds School District Superintendent Kris McDuffy invited district staff and community members to explore three schools with her on Oct. 13.

A group of about 20 adults attended the tour, which began with a quick breakfast and district update in the district’s board room. Then, everyone boarded a school bus and went to Chase Lake Elementary.

There, students told those touring about the power of “yet,” or believing not that you can’t do something, but that you can’t do it yet and can learn. Fifth grade tour guides took groups of two or three adults through the school, sharing the hopes and dreams wall, different classrooms and the music room.

The tour also included Chase Lake Elementary School’s community garden, which was installed earlier this year. Soon, first graders who planted runner beans as kindergartners will harvest their crop.

Then, the adults boarded the school bus again to go to College Place Middle School. The school’s principal explained their motto for the year is “challenge = change,” meaning you have to challenge yourself to change, and changing can be a challenge.

Those on the tour were then taken to a multi-lingual class, where students were doing a Duolingo exercise on their district-issued Chromebooks. After that, the group went to a STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) lab, where students were building roller coasters out of poster board components.

The final school on the tour was the E-learning Academy. Since students in the academy do their course work online, there were no classes to observe. However, tour members were allowed to see the E-learning interface and watch a portion of a typical history class video.

McDuffy will offer tours of schools throughout the year. The next tour will be of schools in the district’s Northwest quadrant on Thursday, Dec. 8 from 12-3 p.m. There will also be tours on March 9, 2017 from 9 a.m.-12 p.m. and May 4, 2017 from 12-3 p.m.

–Story and photos by Natalie Covate

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