School board sees robots, discusses security

The Wahkiakum 4H Robotics Club gave a presentation at last Thursday's Wahkiakum School District School Board meeting. The meeting was scheduled a few days early due to the holidays.

"We are losing a lot of money due to incorrect recycling," Julianne McKay-Beach, the club's student leader said of Wahkiakum County. "We have a proposed solution which is a county-wide education campaign."

The students spoke to the board about recycling plastics and batteries, and about cleaning recyclables.

"It's due to either the lack of knowledge, but some people dump and run," McKay-Beach said. "We are losing money because things are dirty, people are throwing the wrong stuff in or they are throwing things into the wrong bins."

The club plans to put information up at drop sites, to create mascots to educate young children, and create a website.

The club then gave a demonstration of their robots, which they programmed to complete tasks. The club recently took sixth place in a competition and will travel to Olympia to compete again in January.

"I'm just amazed at what they've been able to accomplish in such a short time," Principal Theresa Libby said. "They are doing amazing things."

According to the club's Coach Ron Wright, the club is open for fourth grade through 12th grade.

"We're really just at the start of asking what really do we want to do? What can we do?" Wright said.

The club started with four kids and now there are 12. At a meeting earlier that day, 14 more kids wanted to join.

Derek West, a parent in attendance, voiced some of his concerns about how the school was handling situations involving students being intimidated by staff and coaches, and about alleged threats being made by students at the school.

Director Paula Culbertson responded.

"We cannot act upon gossip," she said. "In the two and a half school years I've been here, I have seen improvement in behavior at the school and I've seen a professionalism come into the situation here.

"I would ask you to stand back and instead of listening to the stories all the time, come and visit. See what's going on."

"I think it's way better than it's been," Director Dan Wilson added.

When pressed about school policies regarding student threats, Libby responded.

"I start with kindergarteners teaching them it's not okay to say 'I'm going to kill you'," she said. "I have those conversations every single day with kids. But there are also some students who do have special needs and when they get angry they might still go to 'I'm going to kill you' because they have some issues with that. Those are the types of things that are often dealt with in a different way. We assess that situation, we sometimes call mental health in, and we check to see if that kid has a plan. You don't call the police every single time."

"It's also one of the beautiful things about these kids going through our school system," Libby continued. "The other students get to know that kid that can have that meltdown. They know not to blow it off and they know not to get completely freaked out."

The social piece is a big part of a child's education, according to Libby, and the staff spends a lot of time trying to teach the kids to deal with it.

"I think there is a happy medium," she said, "and every single day we come and try to do the best we can. We keep moving forward; we keep getting training and education ourselves and try to do the best we can for these kids."

Superintendent Bob Garrett also pointed out that student privacy ties the school's hands.

"We would hope that the community has a trust in the staff and the administration," he said, "that we are not going to protect one or two kids and throw the rest away or vice versa, protecting 98 percent and let two percent be treated poorly. We won't do that. We will investigate every situation, every incident and we will come to a decision that we think is best for all kids. I wouldn't trade the administration or staff for anything."

He also acknowledged that they weren't perfect.

"You don't hear about staff discipline," Libby added, "just as you don't hear about a student discipline. We are constantly working on it."

Director Sue O'Connor acknowledged West.

"It's important to have these conversations," she said.

In other business, Garrett shared that Directors Wilson, O'Connor and Culbertson had signed an oath of office after being officially elected this fall.

The board was reorganized with Director Shawn Merz as President and O'Connor as vice-resident. One position on the board is vacant.

The next meeting is scheduled for January 19, 2016 at 5:30 p.m.