“Vicki discovers school with all 4.0 students!”

 

The meeting was called to order by President Alan with Cherry Tinker leading the Flag Salute and John Ive offering the morning innovation.   The new Woodinville Chief of Police, Sydney Jackson, was introduced as a guest of the Club.

 

Woodinville's new police chief

Vicki Puckett provided the Program for the day with a recap of her 2009 trip to Egypt when she served as Northshore School District’s representative on the NW School of Accreditation.  The mission of the trip was to provide an external accreditation and evaluation of a number of private schools in Egypt.  As Vicki reported:

·        Egypt is a country with 83 million people in the northeast corner of Africa. Approximately 99% of the population lives on 5.5% of the country’s available land.

·        Free public education is offered to all children in a kindergarten to grade 12 school systems.

·        Every graduate is also offered a college education if he/she is able to qualify under a very strict admission system.

·        In addition to the public system, which Vicki did not visit, there is a broad system of private schools with student population from 25 to 1,000 which are generally preferred over public schools.

·        As 94% of the Egyptian population are Sunni Muslims, the schools provide education to both boys and girls but often in separated classroom teaching situations.

·        Compared to US schools, Vicki found the schools she visited to be sparsely equipped in terms of computer and laboratory classrooms.

·        Within Egypt, teacher salaries are higher paid than comparable doctor and engineering positions which has created a teacher population who are highly educated with many advanced degrees but generally do not have educational credentials.

A number of cultural observations were offered such as the school practice of not completing the top floor of school buildings as means to avoid paying property taxes.

 

Following Andrea’s recap of school week, there were a number of announcements:

• John Hughes provided the reminder that 21 Acres is holding a community energy meeting and tour of the construction project at 1:00 PM on Friday, Jan 29^th.
• Erv DeSmet solicited sign ups for the Rotary District Conference in Portland on May 14-16^th.
• Larry Leonardson sought attendees for the Northshore Performing Arts Center Foundation’s fundraiser luncheon on March 19^th at the Hollywood School House.

Art Haines was presented the Paul Harris Foundation pin with two sapphires which noted that he as contributed over $2,000 to the RI Foundation.  In what is certainly good news/bad news, Art reported that his home for the past 25 years was listed on January 14^th and sold on January 17^th with a closing anticipated for February 27^th when he and Janet will be relocating to their new home in southern Utah.

 

Sapphired

Inoculated

The next order of business was the weekly extraction of dollars from the member’s wallets by Sgt. at Harm, Erv DeSmet.  He was ably assisted by Snappy Jarvis, who was awarded the immunity necklace for bird call perfection.  Jay Fiske volunteered $5.00 in recognition Mrs. Fiske’s recent coverage in the monthly Rotarian magazine. 

The meeting was closed by President Alan’s pun of the week. 

 Respectfully submitted;

Eric Greenwood