The Bethel School District Presents Podcast

This week, we look at how one school is making sure technology doesn't completely take over the classroom. We’ll talk with one 8th grader about why mixing in physical books, paper, and hands-on projects helps her focus better and actually enjoy what she’s doing in class. Our other guests, a teacher and principal, say they’re not anti-tech. They are pro-learning. They’re using screens when they make sense, and giving kids a break from them when they don't. New episodes drop on Wednesdays wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also hear us on 101.9 Radio Tacoma, Saturdays at 2 p.m. Be sure to like, comment, subscribe, and share with a friend! bethelsd.org/podcast
--TRANSCRIPT--
This transcript was automatically generated by Gemini from the original audio file. While it aims for high accuracy, it may contain minor discrepancies from the original audio.
Doug: Hey everybody, I'm Doug, that's Conor, and you're listening to the Bethel School District Presents Podcast, and we have a great show for you today—very interesting conversation about the deliberate use of technology in our classrooms. We're going to get to that in just a few minutes. But Conor, you know we gotta start with useless trivia, and I've got a pretty good one today.
Conor: Well, don't be stingy with it. Let's hear it.
Doug: I was reading an article about the Pope's recent lung surgery, and it just got me thinking about our lungs. So Conor, did you know that your lungs are the largest organs in your body, and the surface area of both lungs—and don't think about this too much—is roughly the same size as a tennis court? And if you took the total length of the airways running through them, it's about 1,500 miles. So that is the distance from Chicago to Las Vegas.
Conor: So I don't like that. And I'm going to say don't do those anymore. And that's all I have to say about that.
Doug: No more medical trivia? Well, the weirdest thing about this is you'd assume you have two lungs, you'd assume they'd be a matched pair, right? Symmetrical, balanced, exactly the same—not even close. Your right lung has three separate sections, they're properly called lobes, while your left lung only has two. Why do you think that is?
Conor: I don't like to think about this stuff. I'm not joking.
Doug: Opting out of the conversation! Well, it's all about real estate. Your heart sits slightly off-center to the left; it takes up about two-thirds of the available chest space, and the left lung literally had to forfeit an entire lobe just to make space for it. And while we're talking about it, the right lung doesn't have a lot of real estate either. The liver is pushing up from underneath the diaphragm on that side, so it makes the right lung shorter, though overall it's a lot larger and heavier than the left side. And that, sir, is my useless trivia. You can take your earplugs out now; my source was the American Lung Association.
Conor: Okay, moving on.
Doug: What do you got for us this week?
Conor: Disturbing! Well, a little palette cleanser here for you. Uh, I was a huge Nintendo fan as a kid, as I'm sure you were too, Doug, right?
Doug: It's-a me!
Conor: That's what I figured. I, like you, couldn't get enough of Super Mario Bros., but Douglas, this is interesting. Did you know that Nintendo, the company, was actually founded before radios, vacuum cleaners, or paper clips?
Doug: That—this cannot possibly be true.
Conor: It's absolutely true. Nintendo began in 1889 as a Japanese playing card company, long, long before Mario, video games, obviously even television. Marconi's pioneering radio experiments began in 1895, a full six years after Nintendo opened up shop. My source on that one is the always trustworthy Smithsonian National Museum of American History.
Doug: It is weird that your source is the Museum of American History when this is Japanese history, but I think I'll let it slide for this week, because you, sir, did a lot of work. You took all the recording equipment over to Elk Plain School of Choice and sat down with the principal and a couple of students to talk about how they're using technology in the classroom. It's not about playing Nintendo; it's deliberate, and it's not all the time. They use tech to make sure that students are growing and learning. And let's hear that conversation now.
Conor: I am on location at Elk Plain School of Choice this week, and I am joined by a trio of Elk Plain rockstars. I've got 8th grade humanities teacher Ian Clogston, I've got superstar principal Ashley Swindahl, and then the real superstar of the show—and we'll explain a little bit why she's an actual superstar—is 8th grader Genesis. And so before we get into—we're talking tech today, but we'd be remiss if we didn't mention we've got a legitimate TV star joining us. This is rare. Genesis, can you tell us why you were on TV?
Genesis: I was on TV to bake with my brother; we auditioned for it. A TV show called, uh, Baking Championship: Next Gen, and we really were on the show just to, you know, just show off our, like, try to do our baking skills and try our best to win.
Conor: And I'm sure you're an expert baker if you made it that far. What is your favorite thing in the world to bake?
Genesis: I think my favorite thing in the world to bake is, like, probably German chocolate cake. It was, like, my Nana's favorite, and so that's one of my favorites to make.
Conor: You don't have any on you right now, do you? That sounds—aw. Darn it. Next time. Well, that's awesome. Um, well, let's get right into it, though. Let's—we're here to talk about our amazing technology and when it's appropriate to use and maybe when it's not so appropriate to use. So Ashley, our voters have been incredibly supportive; they're putting iPads in every student's hands. They've been doing that for years and years as part of our technology levy, so thank you, voters. As a principal, how do you make sure those devices are being used deliberately rather than just passively?
Ashley Swindahl: So here at Elk Plain, we took a really close look together as a staff because we want to do what we know is best for kids. And as you said, we're really lucky to be in a district where we have these one-to-one devices, where the community supports us teaching our kids with the best technology available. And we believe that here. We're definitely not anti-tech, but we are pro-learning. And so we took a look at that as a staff to see what does screen time look like here in our building. We've got kindergarten through 8th grade here. Does screen time look the same for kindergarten as it does in 8th grade? When are we using it? How are we using it? How are we using our budget responsibly to support it? And ultimately, how are we helping our students be proficient in a digital world, but also protect the kind of learning if there's another source that could help them learn better, um, exploring those options as well.
Conor: Yeah, and what I like is it's not a hard-and-fast rule. You're not counting screen time minutes. It's not like, "Oh, we're 60 minutes in, everyone turn off your devices." Uh, you're asking a bigger question: what are screens replacing, and I guess, is that worth it? What was the spark behind taking a closer look at how the technology was being used here at Elk Plain?
Ashley Swindahl: I'd say the spark genuinely came from our staff. You know, we've got a really high-caliber staff here at Elk Plain, um, across Bethel School District in general, and so when you have educators starting to come to you and take a look and say, "Hey, this technology's great, and it serves this purpose, but I'm wondering if I can explore this different modality." And we're also seeing the effect that, you know, it's no secret the effects that screen time, whether it's cell phones, TVs, um, how we're using tech in schools, is affecting students. We were encouraged by—multiple staff members came forward; one of them was Mr. Ian Clogston, so I'll let him speak more to that. Um, we actually took a look at the book The Digital Delusion and started to really take a hard look at the research. And it's undeniable that we need to be having these conversations about how we use tech responsibly. Again, not anti-tech, but making sure we're responsible and using it the best way to serve our students in the classroom.
Conor: Sounds amazing, actually, I mean, like, it's something that we all, I think, uh, strive for, even adults, is to kind of lower our screen time or really examine why—is this a worthwhile use of our time? Uh, so Ian, walk us through what all this actually looks like during the school day in your classroom. What are some specific changes you've made around brain breaks, rewards, or choosing paper and pencil over iPads?
Ian Clogston: We've noticed that spelling, handwriting, grammar, and, like, syntax usage among the students are improving since we've been more intentional about using tech. Kids are learning to slow down, and they're learning to read the directions more carefully and fully instead of just skimming through it. Maybe it's just me, but I feel like the kids are more engaged and focused on their work when their iPads aren't the default option. And I feel like compared to previous years where I've used the iPad more frequently that their work is more thorough and more detailed, and I think they find the work more meaningful when it's in front of them in physical form versus on a screen. And we've noticed that their command of the content is also improving because they don't have immediate access to a Google search now to look it all up. They have to try and remember it, write it down. This is also enhancing their ability to think deeply and reason critically about what we're teaching them. But tech is still really useful. Like, without the iPads, I could not have the kids research stuff like we're going to do later on in this year, cause, like, when we were in school, we didn't have access to literally the entire history of the world's knowledge. They can access information that we could have only dreamed of when we were their age. We want to make sure that we're using that tech responsibly and in conjunction with other methods to create a more holistic learning experience where we're not just relying on one modality; we're focusing on more than one to give them a broader range of experiences, so.
Conor: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, a tool rather than a crutch, I'm getting, is that, you know, this—it's a part of an education, but not the part of an education. And we're—it's interesting here because we're at an arts and science school, basically. We're a school of choice here. Um, so hands-on learning is obviously going to play a big part; creativity's going to play a big part. So from a student's perspective, Genesis, what are some of your favorite lessons where you got to build, experiment, or talk with classmates instead of strictly working on a device?
Genesis: Um, I think one of my favorites, last year in science class when I was in 7th grade, Mr. Carpenter, he really did a lot of hands-on, like, learning, like, different, like, experiments. We had to do how, like, heat would, like, can make something expand, and we got to use, like, marshmallows, and we got to put it in the microwave. Different things like that. I like hands-on more. It's pretty fun. We've had a couple other ones, like making, um, like elephant toothpaste. Even though we didn't really get to use all of it, it was fun seeing something that's, like, not always on a screen, like some of our other science curriculum, so yeah.
Conor: Yeah, and that's interesting because I'm sure both of those types of lessons are either available in like a YouTube video or even some sort of 3D thing. But there's probably something about having that tactile, you know, holding it in your hands, you know, mixing things on your own that's probably more memorable?
Genesis: Yes, it absolutely is. I've always been a hands-on person. I always love making slime, different things since I was younger, so that's—I just like hands-on is really something that I enjoy, and it kind of makes me like want to learn it more, and it makes me like remember how to do things because I've done it like in real life instead of, you know, on a screen, so.
Conor: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I can—I can totally see how that would work. So the core idea here that I'm getting from everyone is that this isn't anti-technology, what you're doing over here; it's more pro-learning. When you walk down the hallways today, Ashley, what does success look like, and what life skills do you hope students carry into the future from this approach?
Ashley Swindahl: When we walk down the halls, we want to see our students talking to each other, we want to see them reading books, writing, moving, creating, imagining, uh, collaborating together at a high level. And sometimes that means an iPad's involved, but not all the time.
Conor: So as a student here who's kind of living through this, if you could give one practical piece of advice to other students across the district about taking control of their own screen time instead of letting their devices control them, what would your advice be?
Genesis: It's hard not to think about your device, especially now we have phones, you know, you're always like thinking about something that, hey, text you, but maybe just like just turning it off and just setting it aside. Sometimes I have to do that just even with TV and things like that. Sometimes I'll be into it, and I'll be sitting there for like two hours. You just have to kind of turn it off and like take a break, and just, you know, take a moment to just like think about other things. You know, you could read a book or something like that just to not be focused on electronics all the time.
Conor: Yeah, absolutely. Good advice for everyone.
Ian Clogston: One thing that we're doing in the classroom is, and so I give them sustained silent reading time, and they have to read a physical book in class with their iPads away because we know that most people when they're on a screen reading, they end up skimming most of the time, and we want to really encourage that deep, meaningful interaction with the text to be able to help like further expand their attention spans, cause, you know, we notice that kids are struggling to maintain focus for a long period of time, and like I know that I get easily distracted by my devices, and so I want to make sure that our kids have a space where that is minimized as much as possible.
Conor: It is a delicate balance, really, because like we've all been saying, you know, technology's amazing, and we need it. But you have to find that balance. Do you feel like, Ashley, do you feel like you've found that balance here, or is this going to be something that is just constantly—you're seeing what works, and you're making adjustments?
Ashley Swindahl: We'll have to make adjustments as we go. Um, technology's ever-changing, and so schools have to be on their toes changing too. Um, I can tell you some concrete things that we have changed here at Elk Plain. Um, one of the commitments that we made as a staff was how are we using brain breaks, and we know that the science behind using technology, staring at a device while it feels like a good break, um, it's not actually a brain break for our students. So we committed as a staff to not do brain breaks digitally anymore, to not put an iPad in front of them to let them use that free time. Uh, we also stopped using iPads as such a reward. Uh, it's definitely motivating for kids, but we found ourselves kind of going in the wrong direction by having that carrot on a stick always be digital time or screen time as a reward. So that's another thing we committed to as a staff. We're also upping our paper and pencil game, uh, so as Mr. Clogston said, working on those handwriting skills, those collaboration skills, and getting more tangible things, more analog options in front of our students. Printing costs are always a thing, but we're finding a way to make it work. Um, yes, digital is easier on the printer, but we're finding the research is backing that students need paper, pencil contact. Um, just whatever we can do to emphasize the hands-on learning here, uh, prioritizing building, investigating, experimenting, um, and it also makes me think of you, Genesis, with your baking. I'm sure that having that hands-on learning experience when you're baking, you know, using a recipe versus watching a video of somebody cook, you know, what—what would you say is more valuable to you?
Genesis: I really think recipes are more valuable. Like, even I kind of hate watching videos of people cook. Like, even though I like watching a show of people cooking, I don't like learning from the video because it's hard to keep track of. I like reading it, and it's easier to follow the directions because I can just like—I can take my time and like look into the words and realize what they're saying, so.
Ian Clogston: So Genesis, you're saying that if I watched a video on YouTube, I couldn't become like an all-star baker?
Genesis: No! Well, that's no! You could probably—you could still do it, but I feel like it's like reading it for yourself is—it can be easier for you to understand, just like instead of seeing someone else do it, because their way of doing it can be different from yours, so.
Conor: Well, and it's obvious that Genesis is kind of getting this and rolling with it and, you know, really enjoying the opportunity to touch things and have tactile learning. Have you had any pushback, uh, in your classroom from students who maybe it's a little harder to break those habits?
Ian Clogston: Yes, we—there are some students whose first instinct is to pull out their iPad when there's—when there's a lull in things, and I have to be like, "No, we got to put that away," or if they struggle to do that, I'll just say, "Hey, can—you can come get it from me back once class is over," cause we don't want that to be the default option when it doesn't actually give their mind a rest. And so while technology can make things easier, we also know that learning requires challenge, effort, and friction. And so just because it's easier doesn't mean it's always better. And with—like, Genesis, you've seen some of the kids in our class, too, you know.
Genesis: Right. Yeah.
Conor: Some are accepting it more than others, I guess.
Ian Clogston: And like I've had kids who—like who have come up to me and have said, you know, "Hey, I can actually focus a lot better now that the device is often put away," cause it's not like, "Oh, I'm just going to go pull it out now that my work's done," or I'm not rushing through my work as much just so I can get to the device.
Conor: Yeah, I mean, it's a—it's almost an addiction. I—I wouldn't want to call it that, but, you know, speaking from my personal experience, I know that if someone took away my phone, I don't know what I would do. I would feel so naked in the world. So that—and I'm sure it's the same for students, too, and this is probably a foreign experience for some of them, especially because they grew up—they're digitally native. It's not like—I don't want to say how old you guys are, but for me, I didn't grow up with this stuff, so—so it's slightly different than when, you know, they've never not had a phone in their hand or an iPad in their hand, so it's probably even harder for the younger generation.
Ashley Swindahl: I will share with you, we've got kind of a funny side effect that is happening. We are noticing, um, this year gum chewing and bathroom usage has gone up drastically. So when we looked as a leadership team and said, "What is going on with all this extra gum use, and why are the kids using the bathroom so much?" We have a theory that it might have to do with the kids and not getting that, uh, screen time that they're used to at the rate that they were used to. So they—they don't know how to sit there and just sit with their thoughts, or they're struggling to sit through an hour block, um, without being able to check a device, and we're—we're navigating that together, but we're here to support them and make thoughtful changes as we go to help better their learning.
Conor: I've—I've always said like accepting living in boredom is a real skill and something that has to be practiced, and life is not a non-stop entertainment, and you'll—you'll have times where you just have to sit with your thoughts, and that's okay.
Ian Clogston: And it's better for your brain, too, to have that downtime, because it helps like cement what you've learned into memory. If you're constantly getting stimulated by your screen, your brain isn't forming new connections or memories, so it's good to have that break. Genesis, how do you feel like moving to pen and paper has more predominantly in the classroom has benefited you?
Genesis: Um, I think it's benefited me a lot because I sometimes, even though I know how to like get my work done and like finish things on time, I just sometimes, like, am not focused when I'm writing. Like, I find myself when I'm writing like an essay or something in your class, and I just sometimes won't—like I like find myself not doing it, or I'll just like be like zoning out a little, and I feel like it's better that you're getting us to do things on paper and like—because when I'm on my iPad, that's something big. Like, I will lose focus like so quickly, even with the skimming thing, like with the reading. It's like I stop like reading it for real, and I just kind of keep like just looking through, looking through. So I feel like it's benefiting me a lot just because I can become like more focused on like when I'm writing pen and paper. It's a better skill.
Conor: That's interesting. So would you say it kind of slows your thinking down?
Genesis: I think it does, and it like really causes me to think. Like, I'll go back and erase things or like look over what I actually wrote and can correct things, but when I'm on my iPad, it's like I feel like it's harder for me to see when I'm typing something like what I need to fix, so.
Conor: That makes sense.
Ian Clogston: I mean, I've noticed in from previous years, like our Socratic seminars—like your Socratic seminars were phenomenal this year because like you guys had such a mastery of the material and the content, you could go so deep into it. I was really impressed.
Genesis: We were, yeah, we were really excited about that. I really like arguing, so, you know, that was fun.
Conor: That's great. Uh, well, thank you all so much for joining us. This was really kind of enlightening conversation. I want to—I think everyone in the district, probably everyone in the world, should kind of have in the back of their mind of are you using the screen too much, or is it using you?
Doug: Well, that was a really fun show, really interesting conversation. I know we're all worried about screen time all the time for adults and for kids, and so it's just really great to hear what they're doing in the classrooms over there at Elk Plain and across the district using technology in a deliberate way, not as a babysitter.
Conor: Absolutely, and you can catch us next week, same time, same place, anywhere you listen to quality audio—Amazon, Spotify, Apple, you name it, we're there. And as always, Saturdays, 2:00 PM, 101.9 Radio Tacoma, catch us there too. We'll be back next week.

Making the transition from middle to high school can be a tricky one. This week, we dive into how our district is setting incoming ninth graders up for success from day one. Hear directly from students about overcoming distractions, mastering tough classes, and turning freshman year challenges into big wins. You’ll learn how building the right habits today opens the door to massive dreams tomorrow. New episodes drop on Wednesdays wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also hear us on 101.9 Radio Tacoma, Saturdays at 2 p.m. Be sure to like, comment, subscribe, and share with a friend! bethelsd.org/podcast 
--TRANSCRIPT--
This transcript was automatically generated by Gemini from the original audio file. While it aims for high accuracy, it may contain minor discrepancies from the original audio.
Doug: Hey everybody, I'm Doug. That's Conor, and you're listening to the Bethel School District Presents Podcast. We have a great show for you today. We're going to be talking with some students who have made the move from middle to high school. That's right, freshmen, some ninth graders, will be joining us talking about that transition. It can be a difficult move for some kids, and we're going to see what Spanaway Lake High School is doing to help them make that transition. But before we do that, Conor, you know how we start the show. It's Useless Trivia Time! What have you got for our listeners this week?
Conor: Well, Doug, I think I got a pretty decent one this week, actually. So, did you know that Finland has a national competition for carrying your wife? It's pretty serious stuff. The competition's officially called Eukonkanto, and it involves racing through a 250-meter obstacle course while carrying your better half. And the best part is the prize: the world champion traditionally receives the carried partner's weight in beer.
Doug: Wow! First, let me congratulate you on that pronunciation. Well, well done.
Conor: Thank you. I was really proud of myself.
Doug: (Laughs) I heard you practicing! (Laughs) And second, that's wild! I had heard about competitions like this, where it's kind of these obscure races or tests of strength. I love this kind of stuff.
Conor: Yeah, it's a great competition, very old school. And my source this week is a twofer: Euronews and, just so I can say it again, the official Eukonkanto website.
Doug: Love it! Nicely done.
Conor: What do you got, Doug?
Doug: Well, I've got a good one, too, hopefully. You agree with me, we'll find out. Look on your face says you don't believe it's going to be a good one. So, way back in the day, this is back in the '90s, Conor. The World Wide Web is just getting started, so there had to be a first kind of every kind of website. Why don't you guess along with our listeners the very first website for a band or musical artist?
Conor: That's actually fascinating, and unfortunately, I am old enough to remember all of this. I'm going to guess that was in the early-to-mid-'90s, '93-'94. I'm going to say Michael Jackson.
Doug: That's actually a really good guess, and extra credit, you guessed 1994, that is the year. October 1994, Megadeth has the first-ever website for an artist or band.
Conor: That is truly bizarre, but shoutout to Dave Mustaine and the boys for being trailblazers.
Doug: Wrong band. Oh well, whatever.
Conor: And what is your source on that?
Doug: So, I was listening to the radio the other day, Jodi and Bender mentioned it.
(Sound effect plays)
Conor: Oh no! Our listeners know what that sound means. Your source has been challenged for lacking. Get back to work, Doug. Find me a better source.
Doug: Okay, instead of Jodi and Bender, let's go with Billboard magazine, with a backup of American Songwriter.
Conor: There we go, very respectable. We'll allow it.
Doug: Well, thank you very much. So this week, you headed over to Spanaway Lake High School, and you sat down with some staff and students, in particular those involved in the Ninth Grade Success Program. One of the biggest transitions that we have as a school district is students moving from middle school to high school, also from elementary to middle school. Making that leap can be tough for some students, and the folks at Spanaway Lake are doing some pretty impressive things to make an easier transition for kids. Let's head over there now.
Conor: I'm on location today at Spanaway Lake High School. I am speaking with ninth graders Zaea and Cailey, along with Whitney Parkin, she's a math teacher, and Jennifer Brock, she's a counselor. And what we're talking about today is the Ninth Grade Success Program. So, Jennifer, for people who have maybe never heard of this program, can you give us a little rundown on what it is and why it's important?
Jennifer: Yeah. So, our Ninth Grade Success team really works with our incoming ninth graders, because we know that being on track to graduate as a ninth grader is one of the biggest factors in being on track to graduate long term. And so we have found that if our ninth graders have the skills that they need to start fresh and start well in ninth grade, it's much easier in the long term getting them through that graduation stage.
Conor: Is this the first year of the program?
Jennifer: So, in Bethel School District, this is the third year that this program has been in place. At Spanaway Lake, however, this is only our second year. And so ultimately, it is a partnership where we work with districts across the state of Washington and all come together and try to find ways to help our ninth graders stay on track.
Conor: So, Whitney, as a math teacher, how do you fit into this? Is there a science component? Is there a humanities component? Or is it specifically math that we're focusing on for this success?
Conor: Great.
Whitney: So, we're not just focusing on math for the success. How I fit into it is that I'm the team lead for the work that we're doing here as the Ninth Grade Success team. And that team is made up of a lot of different roles. So we have counselors like Ms. Jennifer right here, we have social services support, yeah, we have admin support, we have equity support, we have other teachers from as many departments as we can find people who are interested in doing this work, and people who just across the board work with ninth graders. So we're trying to create a system of wrap-around supports. Every inch of the building, every area of the building that there's somebody that works with ninth grade students, we try to get one of them at least on the team, and so they work to help build all the supports and encouragements and just create a system that helps them to do the work that Jennifer was just talking about, helping them stay on track. That's what we do.
Conor: Excellent. And how are we measuring success for this program?
Whitney: Okay, so we have a Bethel School dashboard that helps collect the data from teachers' grade books across the building. And then what happens is that we compare it to the OSPI report card that we get just about at the end of the year, and that will tell us what percentage of our students are on track. And we keep a track of that over the past couple of years, especially like we've seen last year, which was our first year, we started off with about 43% students on track and we ended the year with 52% on track, so that's a 9% bump.
Conor: Oh, that's a big jump!
Whitney: Yes, it's a big jump. So we use that data dashboard that we have within our school district to keep track throughout the school year, but at the end, our goal is to make sure that our OSPI report card has a much better grade than we had last year.
Conor: Yeah, keep it moving in the right direction.
Whitney: Yes.
Conor: So let's bring some student voice here. So, Zaea, you are a freshman here, you've been here now, what, a couple months? So, still I'm sure getting your feet under you. What's been the biggest issue you've faced transitioning from middle school to high school?
Zaea: I have been making, um, some good grades. I have been, um, paying attention to all my classes, 'cause last year I haven't been paying attention, really, 'cause I've been distracted 'cause basically social media gets in the way of all my schoolwork and everything. So this year, I'm trying to focus on all my classes and make good grades, and have, um, lots of fours and threes on my schoolwork. So this year, I'm trying to, um, focus and know, put effort in my work and try to lessen the distractions and try to focus on everything I'm trying to do, you know? Like, I don't want to fail. That's one thing I'm trying to like not do, like I really want to succeed.
Conor: Do you feel like that these, some of these things that we're talking about are helpful for you in, in keeping your grades up, in kind of making sure that you don't fall behind, or—
Zaea: Yes, like, um, the success group is pretty much helping me because in my math class, it's pretty hard, 'cause I do get distracted easily a lot and I just don't focus like I'm supposed to be, sometimes. And then with the help I'm getting from success group, with them explaining like how to do this, how to do that, I'm actually like listening, and I'm writing down notes, and I'm like concentrating on everything, and—
Conor: That's awesome! Uh, Cailey, what about you? What's, what's been a surprise since you've moved over here from middle school, or has it been about what you thought it'd be?
Cailey: I think that the transition over has so far been as expected. Like, the confusion, just 'cause how the transition moves, 'cause I got, I got the grip, and then I lost the grip, and then I'm slowly trying to get it back.
Conor: It's a process, you know, and, and there's a lot of things that go into school that are not scholastic, per se. I mean, like you were saying, you got social media, you've got friends situations, it's a lot to kind of wrap your head around. So, this is the second year of this, Jennifer. What kind of success have you seen in the students that you've worked with?
Jennifer: As far as the counseling perspective goes, I think our students are gaining skills early that they can continue to use, rather than us trying to catch them later and come up with those skills later and trying to catch up from what we missed before. We're able to speak with them early and hit things that are needed early. Um, it makes it to where when they're in their junior and senior year, we're able to have conversations around, "Hey, here's these really cool programs you can get into, here's these cool things that we have partnerships with," versus "How are we going to make up your credits and make sure we're getting to graduation?"
Conor: Whitney, it is a young program. I'm sure you see places where it can grow and where you personally and professionally can grow with it. Where do you see this program going in the next couple years?
Whitney: As we continue our work with the Center for High School Success, which is the program that we got that governs all of this and part of the work that goes into us having this grant, we learn and we see that there are different things and different ways that we can support students. As Zaea was just saying, that there are some skills that students have that they know that those are inherently problems that they have, and if we don't teach them how to get beyond those things like distractions and just having, you know, like asking for help, just like she's doing right now, some students may not have those skills developed yet. And so when we're planning and as we work through this program, we see that those are skills and there are areas that sometimes we need to help students be better at, areas that we need to create systems to support students with, and it's not about changing the students that we have, it's about making better systems to support the students that we have and meeting them where they are. And as we do this work, as we hear from them, as we continue to work in these different areas with people from different relationships and ways that they interact with these students, we get to see what they really need help with, and as we continue this work, we just want to make sure that we're making those systems better.
Conor: Yeah, absolutely. And I, I think it's really cool that, you know, students like Zaea have the self-awareness to say, "You know, I struggle at math." Because a lot of people are like, "No, I'm kind of faking it," and I'm going to not, you know, "I don't want to bring any attention on myself." I'm sure as a teacher that helps you to know that a student is struggling and maybe they need a little more help here. Talk a little bit about that, about, you know, students being open to some of their limitations and addressing them.
Whitney: Okay, and that's definitely a part of the work that we are trying to do as we work with CHSS and continue to work with our students. We're trying to help them to develop those skills. Just like Zaea did, Zaea was like, "Hey, I know I struggle with math, and I know that I have a hard time concentrating or staying locked in." Now, if a student does not know that, they're just going to think, "Oh, I'm bad at math," but right here, we're helping them to find and aware where's that issue, where's that struggle, where's that road block that keeps you from being successful, not just in math, but in all your other classes and in other areas of life as well, because we want them to be able to take these skills beyond the classroom and into the world with them.
Conor: Yeah, that's awesome. It's kind of reverse-engineering it and figuring out where does that problem stem from, and then dealing with that, and maybe that helps with all kinds of problems, not just with math. So, Cailey, as a ninth grader now, officially a high schooler, let's say you run into an eighth grader and they say, "Cailey, what advice would you give me going into ninth grade next year, now that you've been here a bit?" What would you tell them?
Cailey: Um, I would probably tell them to, not to worry about if you're making friends or not, but just focus on getting to know your teachers and your environment so you can know how, how your teacher teaches, and so you can learn and catch on all your, your classes and, and the stuff that you need.
Conor: You have a long way to go in high school, but we always like to ask students: what do you want to do when you grow up?
Zaea: When I graduate college, I—I mean, high school—I want to go to NYU, all the way in New York, to become a labor and delivery nurse. I want to get a scholarship, 'cause the tuition at NYU is like super expensive, so I have to get, make good grades and join sort of like lots of clubs and activities and all that. Once I graduate college, I will take a test to be a nurse, and then I start, I get my BSN, and then I'm officially RN. And then I want to work for two years to become a, um, travel nurse, a labor and delivery travel nurse and all that, and then I want to get my dream apartment, and I want to start everything. It's like, I have it all planned out, I always have.
Conor: This is really impressive, I have to say. Your, your life is more planned out than my life is, and that's—and I love that you, you said, "When I get my scholarship," not "If I get my scholarship," I love the confidence. So, Cailey, what about you? Don't feel bad if you're not quite as planned out as that, because I think that's rare, but—
Cailey: Um, I think I'm pretty planned out. Um, no, I'm trying to get into a bunch of programs that involves nursing, and so I can get the experience and the knowledge so I can graduate. My main goal is just to work as a traveling nurse, and then hopefully have two, three kids one day.
Conor: These are, these are excellent plans, and, and I'm sure you'll, you'll both accomplish those. Uh, thank you all for joining me and talking about this. It's a really cool program.
Jennifer: I just want to add, I think it's important to note, as you're talking about, like, as both of these students have talked about these goals and these dreams, that is really a big reason why we jumped on board with this whole process, is because we want to make sure that our students have access to these things. We want to make sure that when they get to those places, that is a place that they know that they can go. And so ultimately, all of this work is to help support those goals for them.
Doug: Well, really great to hear from everybody over there. Thanks again to the folks over there at Spanaway Lake High School for chatting with us today, and we're going to be back next week with another great show. No matter how you listen, whether it's on podcasts at Apple, Amazon, Spotify, or wherever, give us a like, that coveted thumbs up, leave a comment, or just share it with a friend. Text your friend and say, "Hey, listen to the Bethel School District Presents Podcast." If you're in the Tacoma area, you can listen to us Saturdays at 2:00 on 101.9 Radio Tacoma. For everybody else, new shows pop up on Wednesdays. We'll see you next week.

This week, we explore the profound impact of language in our schools and how everyday words can either harm or heal a student's sense of belonging. Through candid conversations with students, we examine the critical difference between intent and impact, the guilt that comes with staying silent, and how bystanders hold the key to shifting a school's culture. It's a look at building safer, more respectful, and inclusive spaces for everyone. New episodes drop on Wednesdays wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also hear us on 101.9 Radio Tacoma, Saturdays at 2 p.m. Be sure to like, comment, subscribe, and share with a friend! bethelsd.org/podcast 
--TRANSCRIPT--
This transcript was automatically generated by Gemini from the original audio file. While it aims for high accuracy, it may contain minor discrepancies from the original audio.
Conor: Hey everybody. I'm Conor, that's Doug, and this is the Bethel School District Presents Podcast, and we have a really fantastic, interesting show for you today. It's all about the power of language, the power to hurt, the power to heal, and how that affects students in particular. So, I headed out to Cougar Mountain Middle School to hear from those students themselves and some staff members, and we'll get to all that in a moment. But first, we gotta start with useless trivia, which is always how we start our show. And given that we're getting closer and closer to Halloween, I wanted to do a kind of pumpkin-themed useless trivia. So I'll start us out this week, Doug. Did you know that the world's largest pumpkins can be the size and weight of a small car?
Doug: That is a giant gourd. What kind of automobile are we talking about here?
Conor: I think a compact, but still. And growers even hollow out some of their giant pumpkins and use them as boats in little pumpkin regattas. It's pretty cool.
Doug: That sounds so made up. Really, looking for your source this week.
Conor: The world's heaviest pumpkin weighed in at an official 2,819 pounds, grown by a couple of British blokes, twins Ian and Stuart Paton. That was last October, so I guess we'll see this year if someone can beat 'em. My source on that is the always-trustworthy Guinness Book of World Records.
Doug: That is fantastic. Really, really good useless trivia there, and very timely for the season. I like that.
Conor: Well, thank you, Doug. What do you have for us?
Doug: Mine comes from astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. Conor, did you know that Cleopatra lived closer to TikTok than she did to the Great Pyramids' construction?
Conor: That's incredible. That makes no sense to me. Explain.
Doug: I will, let's unpack it here. The thing that's happening is called time compression, and as things get farther back in history, we kind of lump them all together. So when I was in school, I learned about Cleopatra, I learned about the Pyramids, you lump them together. Kind of probably happened at the same time. Well, that period of time is about 2,500 years in between the building of the Great Pyramid and when Cleopatra was alive. She lived from about 69 to 30 BC, which means when TikTok was founded in 2017, that is about 2,000 years after Cleopatra, and Cleopatra is 2,500 years from the building of the Great Pyramid.
Conor: Okay, that does make sense now. And, you know what, I bet Cleopatra would have been the best influencer. Her TikToks would have been fantastic.
Doug: I will take your word for it. Well Conor, like you said, you were out at one of our middle schools, Cougar Mountain Middle School, and you were talking with students and staff about the power of language, how it can harm, how it can heal. Tell us more about that.
Conor: Yeah, it's a really fascinating topic because harmful language is something that every age group has to deal with, but especially in school settings. Because as everyone knows, the younger students don't always have those internal filters fully squared away yet, and sometimes they say things that are harmful, that are hurtful, without even meaning it. So it goes to show that harmful language isn't just about being mean for the sake of being mean or bullying because you're trying to bully. But you can hurt people's feelings even if you're not trying to.
Doug: Absolutely. Well, I really love that you got out to the school and we're going to hear from some real students here. You worked with one of our equity specialists, Christney Kpodo, and she's kind of summed up our official stance on hurtful speech, where she broke down where our district draws the line on what is inappropriate. Let's hear from her.
Christney Kpodo: Bethel School District is clear. Every student has the right to learn in a school that is safe, civil, respectful, and inclusive. That means harmful language has no place in our school community. Cursing or using strong language may not always be bullying, but when our words are used to threaten, intimidate, humiliate, target, or seriously disrupt someone's ability to learn, they can become a serious school concern.
Conor: So I caught up with a student named Sam, he's an eighth grader, and he was talking about how hurtful words impact a person's mindset in class, which is a really interesting way of looking at it. He gave a really insightful look into how bad language can pull your focus away from learning and make you question if you even belong. Here's what he had to say.
Sam: Words hurt people, like you should really think about what you say, 'cause your words can really impact people. It could affect them to make them think like they don't belong here. And instead of maybe like focusing in class, they could be thinking about like, "Do I fit in? Do I belong here?"
Doug: I really love what Sam had to say, and it made me think of the work our equity specialists, like Christney Kpodo, are doing on a daily basis, really working to break down those barriers that are standing in front of students and their education. And that can be as much as someone gets their feelings hurt right before math class, and then they can't focus and they're going to lose a day of learning because they're just thinking about what was said to them. Words can even hit you harder when you're already carrying a heavy load. And Conor, you talked to another student named Karis about how a rude comment feels when you're already dealing with a tough situation at home. And her perspective really highlights why timing and empathy matter. Take a listen.
Karis: I feel like it affects them a lot. Like if, like if you're having a hard time at home and you come to school and you have your friends, and then someone says something rude or out of pocket to you, then you're just like taken aback and like, kind of uncomfortable.
Conor: I mentioned earlier that one of the things that complicates this entire issue is that harmful language is harmful whether you intended it to be or not. I chatted with Cougar Mountain Middle School Principal Brittany Corpuz about just that topic and how tricky it is to navigate that distinction sometimes.
Brittany Corpuz: So with intent and impact, it feels, I don't want to say easier, but when people are doing something intentionally harmful, then addressing that seems like a cleaner path forward for the kids, for the adults, and they feel that that makes sense. It's the either unintentional harm or the unaware—that they truly don't understand the history behind the words that they're saying or what they've been told outside of school is supposed to be acceptable—then navigating those conversations are more challenging because we're not always supported in that, and it's not always clearly defined. When you have friends saying things to each other and they think that they're joking, I recognize that they didn't mean it or didn't intend harm, but somebody else was harmed by it. And then the intentional side of things, you give permission to those people when you hear that. You give permission to those kids to say, "Well, they're joking about it, that means I get to use it, and I'm going to use it, as I'm going to weaponize it." So those, those messages get real murky. So that's why we have a zero-tolerance policy here, because that's the part that, that just permeates throughout and can make people feel unsafe, unwelcome, not learning, all of that.
Conor: One of the interesting things I took away from all these conversations is a lot of the students talked about the guilt and almost shame of hearing a student get bullied and not stepping up to do anything about it, and that has its own effect on the students. I talked with Steven, and he had a remarkably honest take on what it feels like to witness that kind of bullying and why peer pressure drives some students to chime in instead of helping. Let's hear his thoughts.
Steven: It made me feel bad for the, for the kids that it was towards, too. Made me feel bad about myself for not standing up sometimes. Or other kids that don't stand up, you know, when they, or even kids that chime in to it, which is also a thing that happens a lot. Kids will chime in to like, to help the other person hurt one person just because they think it's funny, or they think they're trying to be cool, which is really not, like at all. I think it makes you less cool.
Doug: Yeah, when you find yourself in a tough situation, speaking up isn't always easy, even when you know it's the right thing to do. Conor, you talked to Kaylee, and she really opened up about the fear that keeps so many students silent and the heavy guilt that comes with feeling like you couldn't step in.
Kaylee: I felt really guilty because I'm too scared to stand up usually. So I feel guilty and like I can't help myself because I'm too scared to speak up, and I feel bad that they're going through that and I just don't have the guts to stand up for them. And like, I feel bad they're going through that.
Doug: The last student we're going to hear from today is Yorgeli, and he brought a nostalgic and really touching perspective to the conversation.
Yorgeli: That if someone is feeling down, you can, you can bring them back up. And I think it was third grade, my teacher used to say that we should fill people's buckets up. So if their bucket was empty, it meant they were sad, and we should dump water in their buckets to like, like compliments, to make them feel better about themselves.
Conor: I also had a chance to chat with Assistant Principal Mike Chappell, and he offered up a powerful message about how bystanders hold the key to changing a school's culture.
Michael Chappell: And one thing that I would love to convey for here at the school is that to speak up, you know, if you're seeing stuff like that, talk to an adult, tell somebody that, "Hey, this is not okay. We don't want this at our school." And that's what really, what I want, cause you have—you may have a bunch of kids just talking, but there's going to be probably four or five bystanders at a time where they get to stand up and say, "We're not going to allow this at our school." And the more you get that, the better the word will get out too, as well.
Conor: The adults at Cougar Mountain and at all of our schools want every student to know that if you see something that you're uncomfortable with, you can always reach out to them. Associate Administrator Abigail Shelly spoke a little bit more about that.
Abigail Shelly: Every single student deserves to feel safe here, and I think that's something that we believe and are committed to. And so whether that means that one student may need to specifically watch language that we're using in this community, or if another student needs to have that courage to make sure to tell an adult, because that is, that is sometimes a hard thing to do, but to make sure that they know that everyone has dignity and deserves to feel safe because that's the way that we're going to learn, which is our main goal here.
Doug: Well, this has been a really interesting topic, and I'm glad we were able to talk about it today, and I'm especially glad we were able to hear from so many students. Thank you so much to Equity Specialist Christney Kpodo and all of the students that she brought to the table.
Conor: Absolutely. And join us again next week for another great show. And if you haven't already, like, share, comment, share with a friend. And if you're in the Tacoma area, Saturdays at 2:00, listen to us on the old-fashioned radio, 101.9 Radio Tacoma. We'll see you next week.

With Cedarcrest Middle now demolished and the new school starting to take shape, on this week’s podcast we sit down with Cedarcrest students to get their unfiltered thoughts on how things are going at their temporary home, the old Bethel High building. We also check in with new Cedarcrest principal Zach Womack to get the behind the scenes dirt on what it takes to move an entire school and still start the year strong. Along the way we’ll learn it’s not the building that makes a school what it is, it’s the people inside. New episodes drop on Wednesdays wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also hear us on 101.9 Radio Tacoma, Saturdays at 2 p.m. Be sure to like, comment, subscribe, and share with a friend! bethelsd.org/podcast 
--TRANSCRIPT--
This transcript was automatically generated by Gemini from the original audio file. While it aims for high accuracy, it may contain minor discrepancies from the original audio.
Conor: Hey everybody, I'm Conor. That's Doug, and this is the Bethel School District Presents Podcast, the greatest podcast in the history of the universe. And as you expect from us, we have a fantastic show today. We're taking our show on the road, heading over to the new Cedarcrest Middle School, which happens to be the old Bethel High School. But before we do that, you know what we do, Doug. We do useless trivia. So, go ahead and get us started.
Doug: Well, thank you kind sir. And I have been inspired by our students this week for my useless trivia. You actually posted a story on our Facebook page about some students that were learning about microbiomes and doing some real scientist kind of stuff. And these are middle school kids. I just, I thought that was amazing. And then we had a teacher this summer who joined the fight against cancer as a teacher-scientist. Both those stories available at bethelsd.org/news. Promo aside, it inspired me to do a little research of my own. And by that, Conor, I mean I sat in my chair with my phone out and Googled some things. So, did you know that baby kangaroos are born without back legs?
Conor: One, no. But two, how did you get from biomes and cancer-fighting teachers to kangaroos without back legs? I want to know the thought process, the Google hole you went down to find that.
Doug: That's called biology, Conor. It's one of the many medicinal sciences that are out there. And my source for my useless trivia is National Geographic. So when baby kangaroos are born, they are born without back legs. They're basically little nubs back there that are useless. But they do have really strong front legs with claws, and that's good because they're able to crawl into their mother's pouch. Now, Conor, this is where it gets even weirder. At this point, these little, I don't even know if you call them joeys, because they're more like jelly beans. They are literally an inch long, because they're born after 33 days.
Conor: That's insane. How did I not know that?
Doug: It's really, really weird. So then, the mother licks a path that then this tiny little jelly bean is able to crawl through the fur and into the pouch. And that's where it stays. At around four months, the joey can come out of the pouch for short trips and graze on grass by itself. At 10 months, joey is mature enough to leave the pouch for good.
Conor: Crazy talk.
Doug: It's as the legendary natureologist Sir David Attenborough said, "Nature be crazy."
Conor: Nature be crazy, indeed.
Doug: She do, Conor. Let's use some real language here, and let's hear about your useless trivia.
Conor: Okay. Well, mine... As a little background, our wonderful audience should know that both Doug and I are apple connoisseurs. We can't get enough of them. Doug's more of a Cosmic Crisp guy. I'd say I'm more of a Honeycrisp. But, did you know, Douglas, that there are actually thousands of apple varieties? The handful you see at the supermarket represent just a tiny fraction of all the varieties grown around the world. And their names can be pretty bizarre. Some of them sound like insults or diseases, or maybe even like minor aristocrats. Some of my personal favorites are the Slack-Ma-Girdle, the Bloody Ploughman, the Brown Snout, the Sheep's Nose, and of course, the Knobbed Russet, and the Peasgood Nonsuch apple.
Doug: These all sound like pub names from somewhere in the UK. Love it. What is your source today?
Conor: My source is none other than applerankings.com.
Doug: Oh, ladies and gentlemen, that sound that you are hearing indicates that our officials on the sidelines have flagged Conor's source as lacking. Conor, you're going to need to provide a better source, or you will get a yellow card for this episode.
Conor: Oh, my goodness. I don't agree, but I will consent to finding a better source now. Let me just get my little phone here going. All right, let's see here... All right, how about this? I got two of them for you, Doug. I will go with Mental Floss, which I know we've used before, and as a secondary, foodandwine.com.
Doug: Well, I don't hear the alarm. It seems like you have passed the test this week. Well done, sir. It's time for us to get on the road. We're going to pack our gear up and head on over to talk to some students.
Conor: And we are on location today at old Bethel High School, which is almost new Cedarcrest, but you can't say that because there's technically a new Cedarcrest being built right now. Thank you, voters, who supported our 2019 school construction bond. But we're at the temporary new Cedarcrest Middle School. We're joined by Principal Zach Womack and two amazing students, Kaileina and Kayliana. Welcome all.
Zach Womack: Thank you. Thank you.
Conor: So, Zach, what's the transition been like coming over here to this new building?
Zach Womack: The transition has been very smooth. Our staff and students have been great as far as directions and expectations. I'm going to be honest with you, the kids coming over from the old Cedarcrest, they all have to catch a bus, so we have to be really lockstep with our transportation and making sure we're communicating with them. Other than that, it's been a really nice, smooth transition. The staff love it because there's more space at this new building. As you know, the old Cedarcrest was super small and it was, let's just call it, it was outdated. And the space here has been great for our staff and students. They don't feel so snug. Now it just feels a little bit more, you know, they have room to, you know, move around and maneuver around the school.
Doug: Absolutely, it's a huge transition to get everybody over here. For both of our students, you all each spent two years over at the old Cedarcrest, and now you're here at the quote-unquote "new Cedarcrest" for a year. What are the biggest differences that you're seeing in the hallways? We'll start with you, Kaileina.
Kaileina: One of the big differences from moving to the old Cedarcrest to the new Cedarcrest is like the classroom space, it's way bigger. Now we have backpacks instead of string bags.
Doug: That has got to be different. Kayliana, how about you?
Kayliana: Yeah, I agree about the backpack situation, it's good. I also like how like, our old Cedarcrest used to be just one-way hallway, and now you kind of like can maneuver all around the school.
Conor: Yeah, it sounds like there's a lot of extra space, which was much needed. Zach, you know, generally when you move to a new building, it's because you're breaking in a brand new school and it's full of all kinds of awesome tech. I'm thinking about the new Bethel High School. There's a reason this is the old Bethel High School, which is it needed to go. So, you're not taking the plastic off this school; it's got some problems. What's been the biggest challenge so far coming into an older building?
Zach Womack: I think, again, the space. So, there's so much space. This was built for, you know, 2,000 kids. We have about 780 right now of kids here. So, we had to cut pretty much the school almost in half. We're not using the portables, and we cut down the old science wing in the Bethel High School wing, so we're not using any of those classrooms. So, we wanted to make sure that it was like a box, so just a bottom box, top box, where kids can maneuver, but not have to use all that space, because, as you know, there's a lot of hiding holes here. So, we wanted to make sure kids are also safe, but we wanted to make sure the space was used just for educational purposes and not running around the school and hiding. So, it's been great. We put up a makeshift wall in the back of the science building to make sure that we, you know, students have zero access to get to that science wing.
Doug: Yeah, that takes a lot of planning. You're saying that those back doors that went out to the science wing before, that's now walled off?
Zach Womack: Yep, that's all walled off now with just a lock to get in and out, if you know, for, we just use it for storage, basically, now. So, now it's just kind of like a graveyard for our utilities here.
Doug: Yeah, and probably a good thing those portables are out of use. I saw some of those before.
Zach Womack: Yes, absolutely.
Doug: So, we're talking about the building. A school can be nice, a school can be not so nice, but Kaileina and Kayliana, you both know it's the teachers and the staff and the student body that really make a school what a school is. What teachers or staff members are really standing out to you this year?
Kayliana: For me, obviously, our new principal, Mr. Womack.
Zach Womack: Yeah, yeah!
Kayliana: I also think most of our teachers are really good. I feel like all a lot of them stand out, like our new teacher, Miss Hawkins, she's been standing out. Stuff like that. Yeah, I feel like there's a lot of teachers who do really good at this school, and I think like it's not just one like teacher like, you know, like standing out. It's like everybody coming together to stand out, like in general.
Doug: That's awesome, I love that. Kaileina, how about you?
Kaileina: Probably for me, our WEB teachers, Miss Coop and Miss Turner. They helped us become leaders. And also Miss Foreman, she's an Honors Humanities teacher and American History.
Conor: Fantastic shout out to all these amazing teachers here at Cedarcrest. And WEB, of course, is Where Everyone Belongs, and it's an awesome program that has older students welcoming in younger students, making sure that transition is as smooth as can be. And speaking of transitions, not only are you all transitioning to a new building this year, but Zach, you're transitioning to a brand new role. You're head dog here now, leading everyone. What's that been like to be leading a school now? You were, what were you, you were...
Zach Womack: Vice principal last year.
Conor: You were vice principal last year, now you're leading the school. What's that been like so far?
Zach Womack: It's been great. The staff and students have been awesome as far as like the transitioning for me from vice principal to principal. I've even had parents come out, reach out to me, congratulating me, getting the position, which was, you know, that was awesome. But, you know, moving into that role, the biggest thing is, you know, I'm overseeing the entire school. Hans, who's a wonderful principal over at Spanaway Lake High School now, he did a lot to get me here as far as transition from vice principal to principal. You know, he's always a phone call away. And now, instead of looking for him for the decisions, I have to make the big decisions now, the final decision. And he's helped, he's done a lot to help me prepare for that. But my staff have been super receptive. They always, you know, congratulated me. The day we found out, I mean, multiple staff came up and gave me big hugs. And it's really a great place to be, and I'm so lucky to have that position.
Doug: Well, we are glad to have you here, and big shout out to Principal Nelson over at Spanaway Lake High School. Kaileina, why don't you kick us off? What opportunities are happening here at Cedarcrest that you're taking part of? Sounds like WEB was one of them.
Kaileina: Mm-hmm. Also sports, like track. I'm doing track. Today I have a track meet.
Doug: What's your event in track?
Kaileina: I do 4x1 relay, 100-meter sprint, and 200-meter sprint.
Doug: Nice. What's your fastest in 100 meters?
Kaileina: Uh, I think 20-something, 20 seconds. I forgot, I'm not for sure.
Doug: That seems really fast. I definitely could not do that.
Zach Womack: No, me neither.
Doug: Kayliana, how about you? What are you up to as far as after-school activities go?
Kayliana: Um, well, right now, I'm on the off-season. But once winter two comes around, I play soccer, so does Kaileina. So, we both take part on varsity girls soccer, and then after that, it's girls volleyball.
Conor: Very cool. Man, awesome opportunities. And I'm going to join in and say I could not beat you in a footrace, I know that's for sure.
Doug: So, as all three of you know, the old Cedarcrest is now gone. It's just gone, it's not there anymore. What was it like for you the first time that you saw that, when you drove by and noticed that school you went to was no longer existent?
Zach Womack: I'll start if we want to go down... Necessary. I just felt like, you know, I've been there for six years and the building was super outdated. And I'm so excited for our community. So, I think excitement for the community, because I know, you know, with the football field and the new outdoor courts, it's going to be utilized with our community. And it's definitely necessary, and I'm super excited for the accessibility that our community will have outside our building.
Kayliana: Um, for me, as I was driving down, I just thought, "Wow, this is really real, this is actually like happening." And I was like thinking, like my brother right now is in fifth grade, like he's going to have such an amazing middle school year, getting to go in to be like the top dogs, stuff like that, in the new building, stuff like that. And I saw some of like the plans and it looks really nice.
Kaileina: Uh, for me, definitely it was needed for the new, for the Cedarcrest, cause how old it was. And excited for how it's going to look like, how it comes out, and for the new fields.
Doug: Love that. Yeah, that building built in the 1900s, good grief! Ancient. So were you, Conor.
Conor: So Zach, you've been involved in that planning process for the new school. What are you most excited about seeing once it's built?
Zach Womack: The technology, one. Just looking at Bethel High School and all the new stuff they have, I'm super excited about the technology advances that we're going to have. But also the space. The space is going to be, that's a big thing, as you can see, we talked about it here. But the footage, the space, and the accessibility that we'll have for our students of special needs, that's one of the things that we're really driving, to make sure everyone has access to the school. And I have a big part in that decision to make sure that kids feel safe, but also feel connected at the school each day. But as far as like picking the colors and branding the school, that's been exciting also. Last week, I was able to help coordinate to select what we need far as our locker room. I was able to help pick out the colors and actually design how the lockers are going to look. So, that was exciting. And it's getting close. I mean, it says two years we'll have a new building, and last I talked to them, everything is on point, everything is ready to go to open up in two years.
Conor: That's fantastic. I'm sure the staff here is going to be thrilled to get some sunlight coming in in this new building.
Zach Womack: There's going to be windows, finally, yeah!
Doug: Yeah, for sure. You mentioned those locker rooms. The locker rooms at the new Bethel High School, and again, thank you voters for approving that 2019 school construction bond that built that school and is building the new Cedarcrest and a host of other schools in the district over the past few years. But the locker rooms at the new Bethel High, they're like, you'd expect the Seahawks or the Mariners to be in there, they're fantastic rooms.
Zach Womack: Sure. Yeah.
Doug: Yeah, so really excited for our student-athletes. Speaking of student-athletes, our two that are sitting here, final question for you both, and it might be too early, but I don't know, you're in eighth grade, you might be thinking future already. What are your plans for high school? What are your plans for career or college after you graduate?
Kayliana: So far, I'm in between schools. I might go to Spanaway because our head coach plays there, or like GK has a really good soccer program. But for like looking for my future and stuff like that, I want to go to school to be a doctor. That's one of my things, cause I love math and science.
Doug: Wow, that's awesome, fantastic. Kaileina, how about you?
Kaileina: I'm probably going to go to Spanaway Lake High School. And for a career, I probably might want to do soccer or a sport in high school.
Conor: Well, the future looks very bright over here. Thank you, Kaileina, Kayliana, and Principal Zach Womack. And for our audience, don't forget ABC Day is just around the corner on October 3rd. It's going to be at the brand new Bethel High School. Come out, 10:00 to 3:00 p.m., for a great free day of food, entertainment, and you get a chance to check out that amazing new Bethel High School if you haven't been over there. See you there!
Doug: And no matter where you're listening to this week's show, be sure to like, comment, subscribe, share with a friend. And to everybody listening on 101.9 Radio Tacoma, thanks for keeping it old school. We'll be back again next week.

What does it take to help student-athletes succeed both on and off the field? This week, we discuss how participation in school sports fosters essential growth, teaches work ethic, and builds lasting connections. You'll find out which hometown alumni are starring in college athletics and the NFL, showing how sports set students up for a lifetime of success. New episodes drop on Wednesdays wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also hear us on 101.9 Radio Tacoma, Saturdays at 2 p.m. Be sure to like, comment, subscribe, and share with a friend! bethelsd.org/podcast 
--TRANSCRIPT--
This transcript was automatically generated by Gemini from the original audio file. While it aims for high accuracy, it may contain minor discrepancies from the original audio.
Conor: Hey, everybody. I'm Conor. That's Doug, and this is the Bethel School District Presents Podcast. We have another great show for you today. We're talking sports, we're talking student athletes, we're talking robots. Let's just say it's a big show. But before we get into any of that, you know what we do, Doug. We start our shows with useless trivia.
Doug: Man, I hope we're talking about robot wrestling later on, because my useless trivia this week comes to you from the WWF. That's right, the World Wildlife Fund. So, did you know that 75% of the world's wild tiger population is in India?
Conor: I did not know that. That's pretty fascinating, actually.
Doug: Yeah, I thought it was pretty interesting, too. The remaining 25% is also located in Asia. They span nine other countries including China and Russia. Tigers never spread out like lions did. Lions evolved across both Africa and Eurasia; tigers, just in Asia, and 75% of them in India. So, there you go. That's my useless trivia. Conor, over to you.
Conor: That was a good one, Doug. I'm going more sports to stay in line with the show. So, Doug, did you know that the longest game in professional baseball history took nearly two months to finish? The Pawtucket Red Sox and the Rochester Red Wings began their 33-inning game on April 18th, 1981. They played until the following morning and then had to suspend it, 'cause it just was too much darn baseball. They finally returned to the game on June 23rd, when Pawtucket took the lead, 3-2, and that score held up. Interestingly, there were two absolute baseball legends on the field that day: Wade Boggs was playing third base for Pawtucket, and Cal Ripken, Jr. was on Rochester. And my source on that is the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Doug: That's fantastic. Makes me think of a book I read, it's called The Iowa Baseball Confederacy. It's about a game that lasted 2,614 innings, written by the same guy that wrote Shoeless Joe, which became the film Field of Dreams.
Conor: Oh, what do you know?
Doug: Bonus useless trivia. I just had to step on yours, but it was at least sports-related, and that's what we're here to talk about today. We have lots to talk about with our very special guest. Some people still call him coach; we call him first class here. It's Bryan Streleski. He's our Director of Athletics and Security. Bryan, welcome back to the show.
Bryan Streleski: Thank you. Thank you, Doug and Conor.
Conor: Yes, indeed, thanks for joining us, Bryan. And it's the fall, means football season. We know you're kind of the resident jock around here. So, tell us, you think the Seahawks have it in them to repeat, our defending Super Bowl champs? I know they lost their quarterback dang near the first play of the season. How's the season going to play out for them this year?
Bryan Streleski: Oh, they looked really good in their first game. I mean, other than losing their quarterback, had a good win. Nice to win at home, beat the team you beat in the Super Bowl, so super fun to watch that. Did catch that second half, which is the only half that really mattered in that game, 'cause the first half didn't look very good. But I think that they've got a tough road ahead, 'cause the NFL's super competitive, but they looked really good.
Doug: Yeah, I only watched the fourth quarter of that game, and that was the only quarter I needed to watch. It really bothers me when we waste time in the first three quarters of football games and everything happens at the end. Another cool thing that happened during the Seahawks' opener was a Graham-Kapowsin High School alumni, his name's Dakota Harris, class of '24. He got to hold the American flag during Mike McCready's playing of the national anthem. Dakota's stationed at Naval Hospital Bremerton, and we loved seeing him on the field. Love seeing what our students do after they graduate.
Conor: And speaking of that, we've got some Bethel School District alum who are actually playing in the NFL this year, which is really awesome. And for whatever reason right now, they all happen to be on the O-line. But we got Vega Ioane—if you remember, he was the absolute stud Graham-Kapowsin offensive lineman on that state championship team—Foster Sarell, a few years older, he's playing for the 49ers this year, and Ezra Cleveland, another Bethel High grad, he's starting for the Jacksonville Jags. So, congrats to all three of those guys. And we have another generation coming up. We got a lot of kids who are playing collegiate football as well. Just at UW alone, we've got Zaydrius Rainey-Sale, Ramak Froun, and Darrien Clemens, which is amazing to think from our district we've got three—I think they're all starting and they're all playing well. We also have Joshua Wood at Idaho, he's their starting quarterback; Jabez Woods, also from GK, he's at Montana State and he actually won a national championship last year and had a couple of really big catches in that; and Josiah Wagoner's at Cal from Spanaway Lake High School, Go Bears! So, that's another cool thing: we as a district are sending student athletes to the next level, which is awesome. So, talk to us a little bit about the importance of transitioning our student athletes, whether that's from elementary to middle school, middle school to high school, or high school to the collegiate realm, the importance of that.
Bryan Streleski: Yeah, I think it's exciting to have all these kids going on to play collegiate sports, but I think that the transition from elementary to middle school, middle school to high school, is a significant jump for each student athlete, and our females struggle probably the most in that. And the national numbers will show that our girls struggle to come into our middle school programs after they leave elementary, and then from middle school to high school, but we're seeing a significant drop from high school to the collegiate level as well. And that's not just our Division I athletes, that's our NAIA athletes, our Division III athletes, and our community college athletes. And some of even our local programs at the college level are struggling to get our female athletes. And so, one of our pushes right now is to find ways to help encourage and keep our kids going and moving forward in their athletic endeavors as well as their academics. And so, it helps them learn life skills and continue to build. Not to mention, I tell a lot of our kids this as I get to talk to them around the district, is you're never going to regret going and traveling and going to play at a different college, go to a different state. While yes, you're paying for school, but your school's paying for you to live in a hotel room for a weekend to compete in a sport that you love. It's a great opportunity for our kids, and so we're trying to find ways to encourage our kids and help our kids develop those skills that want to push themselves to go on and continue to play at the collegiate level.
Doug: Yeah, Bryan, there are a ton of benefits for our student athletes as they move through their K–12 education. Let's talk now about some of the significant roadblocks that are in our students' ways.
Bryan Streleski: Yeah, for our sports that we don't have a venue for them to participate in, it creates a very interesting dynamic. Our swim in the fall right now for our girls, you know, they're spending their evenings at a pool at PLU or up in Eatonville. Their meets are all on the road. They're treated as home meets at a different school's venue as a home meet, so the other school's running the venue for us. And so, it's just an absolute challenge for them. So, you know, shoutout to all of our swimmers, and then in the winter, our bowlers, our golfers, any of those sports that don't have a venue. It's a significant issue for them to be able to get to and participate in these events. And so, they do a great job, our coaches are dedicated and want our kids to succeed, and you know, pushing them and teaching them all the life skills. And it's a huge time management piece for our student athletes and our coaches when they've got to, you know, work into the evenings, late evenings sometimes, to be able to do this.
Doug: Yeah, you got to factor in transportation. You said bowling, man, if we need to build one, I offer my office space for it. Let's bring that alley right over here; I love bowling.
Conor: And speaking of incentivizing our student athletes to kind of take that next step and move on to collegiate sports and just college in general for a lot of them, what I like about what all of our schools do is we have these big signing ceremonies. And we don't just have it—it's easy to have a signing ceremony for someone like Zaydrius Rainey-Sale, who I think was like the number one football player in the state. Of course, we're going to do that, but I love that they'll have a signing ceremony for a student athlete who is going to maybe bowl for a community college, and they treat it exactly the same. So, it really gives them incentive to say like, "Hey, you know, I'm going to be celebrated if I do this." So...
Doug: Yeah, it really builds that sense of belonging, and that's something you were talking about earlier, Bryan. It's the reason that sports are important other than the competition itself. You mentioned life skills earlier. Break that down for us. What are kids learning alongside learning the sport?
Bryan Streleski: We just talked about it with the swim team, is time management's a huge piece. It helps you learn that and manage it as you're going to the collegiate level, but even our homework and things that are high school level, it's a struggle when you're out until 7:00, 8:00, 9:00 at a swimming pool and you got to get home and try and do your homework. And so, they learn a lot about time management, but it's about building your teammates up, celebrating when somebody else does something great. And, you know, so when you're in a business setting and the sales team does something great, and you're from marketing, you get to go celebrate with the sales team. And so, you're just building a sense of community inside of that small group, and right now it's a team, but eventually it'll be a business, and hopefully, you know, they'll be running those businesses. We'll have all the CEOs and CFOs in Pierce County will be from the Bethel School District, and it'll be because of all of the experience that they gained through life skills of what they did with their teams through high school, so.
Conor: And of course, our sports are levy-funded, so we want to thank our voters for continuously passing these levies to allow our students these type of activities. And while it's not levy-funded, the new Bethel High School was certainly bond-funded, and they have some great new facilities for athletes over there. You want to walk us through some of those?
Bryan Streleski: Yeah, I think it's been a beautiful spot for our kids. Got to watch the first soccer game played on their new field over there, so they have a turf field with lights similar to Graham-Kapowsin and Spanaway Lake. Beautiful site; you can watch from up above, you can sit in the stands. We haven't got to use the new baseball/softball fields yet, that won't be till the spring, but those are turf infields, and they are going to make it playable rain or shine. And so, we'll get a lot more games in. Also helps with our maintenance costs and our ability to just work on those fields and work on our other fields because they don't have to maintain those. And then they have an additional practice field that's beautiful and gives a spot while there's a contest going on over on the game field, they got a spot to go practice over on their practice field that's also a turf field as well.
Doug: Yeah, absolutely. And thank you, voters, for passing the 2019 school construction bond. You mentioned the turf fields at Spanaway Lake High School and Graham-Kapowsin High School. Those were the first two projects done with money from that bond, and now the new Bethel High School, the latest project done with money from that bond. So, thank you to our voters.
Conor: And another cool thing, I had no idea until you mentioned this: we have a really interesting robot doing some work over at the new Bethel High. Tell us about that.
Bryan Streleski: Yeah, so we have a robot that is called the Turf Tank, and it is a field painting machine. And it will, if you go to the practice field at new Bethel High School, all of the lines on there are painted by this robot, the Turf Tank. And so, our maintenance team takes it out, uses GPS, sets it up, hits go, and it paints the field. So, right now it has a football field that our marching band uses for practice and then our football teams use. And it also has a soccer field for our soccer teams to practice on. It has kind of transformed their work over in the maintenance department and is able to do it in a less amount of time and more precise than what we can do trying to walk behind a painter. It's also out currently painting right now, is out painting the middle school softball and baseball fields for their first games of the season right now.
Conor: That's incredible. I've been trying to get Doug replaced by a robot forever, and now I know it's possible, so.
Doug: How do you know it hasn't happened? Robots are very realistic these days. Well, let's circle back to the top and give our listeners a fall sports preview. We'll start with football. How are our three football teams looking this season?
Bryan Streleski: Oh, they look very competitive, and our league play hasn't started yet, so we'll kind of know a little bit more here in the next couple weeks of where they're going to fall. But they're strong offensively, working on our defense like always. I think early in the year a lot of times that, you know, offensives, they are able to kind of perform at a high level, getting our defense squared away so we can stop the teams that we've got to play. So, football's looking really good. I think we've got some good individual talent. Graham-Kapowsin looks really strong with individual talent. Bethel is right there, and the size of some of these kids that are coming through the school district, like our NFL guys that are all playing offensive line, we got a lot of linemen that are coming up as well through Spanaway Lake and through Bethel. So, it's going to be interesting to see how the season plays out.
Conor: It's not just football, obviously, that's going to be the big one, but we also have fall girls soccer, swimming, volleyball, girls golf. Any exciting stuff in any of those happening?
Bryan Streleski: Yeah, exciting one was I went and watched the first home volleyball game for Bethel High School last week, and they got a 3-0 victory in their first ever game in the new Bethel. So...
Doug: Outstanding. Go Bison!
Bryan Streleski: Yeah, it was great. It was a fun time to watch, seeing all the new technology that's available for them. GK's looking strong again in volleyball. Spanaway Lake is always up and coming, super athletic, looking to see what they can do to compete in the league. And then moving into girls soccer, we're always competing and trying to grow. It's probably one of our biggest growth sports out here in the Bethel School District, as we don't have a lot of club kids in the past, and we're starting to really get those kids that are playing more soccer, so they're able to compete with the teams that are in the league and in the state that have those types of talent and those types of kids. So, really learning and growing. Graham-Kapowsin has a freshman golfer who's leading the team right now. She's a strong competitor, so super exciting to see her out there playing. But all three of our high schools have full golf teams this year. It's the first time in several years that all three had enough golfers to be considered a full team.
Doug: Well, sounds like it's going to be a great season. You mentioned technology there at the new Bethel High School. I think a lot of our listeners don't know that we have something called Hudl, H-U-D-L, where you can watch some of these games. Tell us about that.
Bryan Streleski: Yeah, Hudl's a great opportunity for us. So, on the fan side, it's great for streaming, so we stream all of our indoor games. Our varsitys are all streamed free to our community to watch. And also, our football games at Art Crate, plus our JV and C football on each of our high school fields are streamed as well. So, it's a great opportunity. If you can't make it to your kid's game, Grandma and Grandpa live in Arizona where it's nice and warm, they are down there, they can watch that game on Hudl, it doesn't cost them anything.
Doug: Well, that's amazing. Honestly, I'm glad I asked the question. I didn't know it was free for everybody, for our community, for anybody that wants to watch. And if you want a link to that, you just head over to bethelsd.org/news.
Conor: Well, awesome, and congratulations to all of our student athletes this year. And Bryan, thanks for joining us, and we will be back next week with a brand new show.
Doug: Well, thank you again to Bryan Streleski, our Director of Athletics and Security, for joining us today. Great conversation. I love hearing about what our student athletes are up to and all the benefits that they're getting from participating in our sports programs. Whether you listen to us on Apple, Amazon, Spotify, or 101.9 Radio Tacoma Saturdays at 2:00, we loved having you here. Be sure and like, comment, subscribe, share the show with a friend, and be sure to join us back here next week.

On this week's show, we share the dramatic story of a high school student whose quick response saved a life during a medical emergency. Applying hands-on techniques he learned and practiced in a sports medicine class, he delivered chest compressions and successfully used an AED before first responders reached the scene. Hear his dramatic firsthand account, plus a conversation with his teacher about her practical training methods and the citizen lifesaving award the student received for his remarkable bravery under pressure. New episodes drop on Wednesdays wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also hear us on 101.9 Radio Tacoma, Saturdays at 2 p.m. Be sure to like, comment, subscribe, and share with a friend! bethelsd.org/podcast
--TRANSCRIPT--
This transcript was automatically generated by Gemini from the original audio file. While it aims for high accuracy, it may contain minor discrepancies from the original audio.
Doug: Hey everybody, I'm Doug. That's Conor, and you're listening to the Bethel School District Presents podcast, and whether you're listening to us on Spotify, Apple, Amazon, or Radio Tacoma 101.9, we are glad to have you here today, because we have an incredible story about a student who saved a life this summer. It's dramatic, it's inspiring, and you're going to want to hear it. But of course that's going to happen after useless trivia, which is how we start every show, Conor.
Conor: It is indeed, Doug, and I figured, we're getting into the fall season here, so I'm going to do a fall themed one. And don't you just love it, speaking of fall, when those leaves start to turn color? Well, Douglas, did you know that the red ones are actually due to sugar being trapped inside the leaves?
Doug: Sweet!
Conor: Sweet indeed. So here's what's going on. As the days get shorter, the trees start building a tiny wall of cells at the base of every leaf stem to prep for winter. But on those warm, crisp fall afternoons, the leaf is still photosynthesizing, pumping out simple sugars, and they have nowhere to go. They get completely trapped inside the leaf, and when all that trapped sugar sits in the cool night air, the leaf undergoes a wild chemical reaction that produces a pigment called anthocyanin, which is actually the exact same stuff that makes blueberries blue and cherries red.
Doug: This is fascinating one, and you are a fountain of big words this morning. What is your source?
Conor: My source on that one is the National Institutes of Health.
Doug: How about that? Doesn't get any smarter than those folks up there.
Conor: No sir, they don't get any smarter than that. Let's see if you can match my genius level trivia here.
Doug: Well, I will give it a shot, and I was thinking about our lifesaving student when I was preparing mine, and so I was looking into the history of CPR. I'm going to take you back to 1774. The Royal Humane Society, that's what they're called now, Conor. Back in 1774, this UK group was called the Society for the Recovery of Persons Apparently Drowned.
Conor: Love that name!
Doug: Very specific, it was formed by two doctors, and they had a couple of goals. One was to publish information on how to save people from drowning. This was a big deal back then; there weren't as many swimmers in London. And then two, they were going to pay people two guineas for anyone that attempted to rescue a drowning person, and four, if you actually brought the person back to life.
Conor: I'm scared to know, but how much is a guinea?
Doug: That's, I had to look that up. I was afraid it was some kind of guinea pig barter system, apparently. And this is according to the Royal Humane Society in the UK, one guinea is equal to one pound and five new pence. Today, it'd be about 140 bucks, so we're talking over $400 to rescue someone, $200 to try, and I'll give you one guess what happened.
Conor: Well, they probably do what you do, Doug, and start scamming everybody.
Doug: They 100% did that! So two people would get together, and they would, one would claim to have been drowning, and then the other one saved them, and they'd come and collect their money. So this didn't last very long; they eventually went from guineas to certificates of participation, which helped them out financially, uh, but still a worthwhile endeavor.
Conor: Absolutely. And our guest this week needed no financial incentive to be a hero. Ethan, who's a senior at Spanaway Lake High School, was at a basketball game this summer at his school when something pretty scary happened. He's going to tell you about it.
Ethan: It was about halftime. As they were cooling down, whistle blew, I just hear a thud. And I just start hearing screaming from Vincent, the victim. I heard it, and I turned around, and I saw what was happening. I see a, see a bunch of people crowding around him, kind of just trying to see if he's okay, trying to like tap him, stimulate his chest, but nothing seemed to be working. He just kept screaming. Uh, I see my auntie trying to call 911, and I think everyone was just in a panic state at that time. During that moment, I ran out to grab the AED near the front office. I put it beside him, just in case anything happened, and I think when I put it down, I think at that moment they picked him up and decided to go outside with him, right in the front of the lunchroom. That's when I just ran out. That's when I knew like, I knew CPR, and maybe I'm the only one that knows it. So I ran out, and right when I walked out those doors, I hear, um, "Does anyone know CPR?" And that's when I kind of just shoved everyone out the way and just kind of just got started, just giving compressions and trying to get everyone to stay back. And I did three rounds of compressions, 90 compressions, and I was really lucky to have my auntie there to help, and she just started counting, counting for me, cause I was losing my mind at the same time. I was kind of losing track of how many, like compressions I was going for. And I think after the third round, that's when I got up behind me and grabbed the AED and put it on him, and I told everyone to back up, and it shocked him. We gave him one shock.
Doug: Wow, very, very dramatic. And walking up to a scene like that and having someone, "Does anybody know CPR?" and the high school student says, "Yeah, I know CPR." Where did you learn CPR?
Ethan: Right here in this classroom, Ms. Dahl. I learned it two years straight, sophomore year and junior year. Ms. Dahl really helped me like, it just came muscle memory, cause I wasn't really thinking in my mind, it just became just muscle memory and staying on beat. And there's a lot of things to remember, but I think Ms. Dahl did a great job just getting it down in my, my muscle instead of my brain.
Conor: And that is a great segue to our second guest here. We've got Kristyn Dahl. She's a Spanaway Lake High School sports medicine teacher. So, you just heard that very dramatic retelling of a very, very dramatic afternoon for one of your students. What does it mean to you to see that the work that you're doing in this classroom actually has practical applications? This isn't just theory; these are lifesaving techniques you're teaching.
Kristyn: Well, first of all, I'm so proud. I've been teaching CPR for over a decade. I've been certified since I was 16 and worked in the medical field, and I have never had to give compressions. I've been the 911 caller, I've been on scene for many cardiac arrests, but like Ethan and I talk about, you, you tend to have somebody else that will jump in. And the fact that my 17-year-old student is the one that was like, "Okay, here we go," I'm super proud of that. So, that's first things first. So proud of you. And then second of all, being able to teach real-life skills is what we try to do in CTE, and making it fun while we're in the classroom, but then making it something that they can take out into their life. Because I tell them, it will be someone you love, unfortunately. That's typically when we use our skills, is on somebody that we love. And so being able to kind of take that emotion out of it is something that I do try to teach them when we're in here. It's huge that he was able to do that.
Doug: Yeah, you mentioned CTE, Career and Technical Education classes, of which sports medicine is one of many that we offer here in the Bethel School District. I like that you said you try and take the emotion out of it, and Ethan, you said it was just muscle memory. Is that just part of CPR being a good trained CPR person, is just that repetition and you just get into the zone?
Kristyn: It is. It's repetition, and I make them get out of their comfort zone. They do not like the first day or two that I do it, because they, you know, they're 16, 17 years old, they want to play around, they want to, "Mine's dead!" and, you know, they want to do that kind of thing. And so I just, I make them do it till they're fatigued. Um, I do do silly songs...
Doug: I was going to ask about the songs, because when I learned CPR the first time it was "Staying Alive." Is that still the song?
Kristyn: Or "Another One Bites the Dust"! No, it's actually, it's actually, uh, we use Kendrick, "Not Like Us." And so, and it's awful because it starts with, "Shh, I see dead people." And they all know, but that's actually American Heart Association. So it's not even, I will, I will say they did, but I will say I was doing it before they did. I'm just going to say that. I was an early adopter. Uh, Bad Bunny has a song that the American Heart Association is using now, too. Um, but it's the, we role-play the whole thing. Like, they have to run to find an AED, they have to go through all of it. Like I said, I push them out of their comfort zone, and it is, it's awkward. That first couple times when you're yelling, "Hey, doesn't have a pulse! Call 911! I need an AED!" They don't get to say it like that. They're screaming, they're yelling, they're awkward, and by about the third or fourth time, um, they start understanding what it is. And I will tell you, I now have an amazing example of why that practice is so important, because he was able to go back into that moment. Did you have a little Kendrick in your head, I hope?
Ethan: Yeah, I did.
Kristyn: Good, he did! He had a little Kendrick. So, in, and it helps because it will center you and it will ground you. And so, teaching it as a theory is one thing, but now being able to teach it with a kiddo who actually did it in our halls and getting the outcome that we got, cause that's not a typical outcome, I've been processing how to make sure I keep teaching it this way and making sure that kids have that success.
Doug: Yeah, Ethan, you mentioned CPR, you mentioned the AED. What else did you learn in the sports medicine class that came into play that day?
Ethan: Definitely just, I think situational awareness definitely played a, um, a role. I think, uh, telling people, giving them a role and communicating what you need and how, how they can help is was crucial in, um, helping that day. Just telling people, "Uh, call 911," or "Count for me," or "Switch with me," then that was, that was really good help from Ms. Dahl.
Doug: Outstanding.
Conor: Yeah, it's really an amazing level of confidence and self-awareness and all these things, and it reminded me, we in our district, we have something called Portrait of a Graduate. These are five skills we want students to graduate with: they're communication, critical thinking, compassion, competence, and confidence. Obviously, Ethan, you kind of demonstrated all five of those. Kristyn, what about your class do you think is setting kids up for success in that realm?
Kristyn: The number one thing I teach these kids is curiosity. I have curriculum, I have things that I have to meet, but what it comes down to is if they're not curious and wanting to push and learn and review and do all of that, then it's just memorization, and I don't go for rote memorization. I want them to have it in their, like you said, in their body. So I do a lot of kinesthetic things with them. Obviously CPR is kinesthetic, it's hands-on. But I try to take some of the really mundane tasks, because it's, you're learning anatomy, you're learning physiology, and so the way we were taught, our generation, it was: memorize, flashcards, things like that. And I try to get a real hands-on approach with the kids so that they can truly understand A, the why, and then B, want to dig deeper with that curiosity. And then also, I want antici...
Ethan: ...pation.
Kristyn: ...pation. I want them to anticipate, and I think that's what hap, that helped him so much is he was, the way he explained it to me and the way the fire department explained it to me, is he was kind of anticipating all of those needs. He saw where things were kind of going askew, and he was able to come in and be like, "Actually, I think you should do this." The fact that he was able to kind of anticipate what those needs were going to be...
Doug: I love that. So, Ethan, we heard just yesterday you were over at the fire station getting an award. Tell us what award that was, tell us about that experience.
Ethan: They granted me with the Citizen Lifesaving Award, yeah. And it was a great experience. They brought my family in, did a little ceremony, and showed me around the place, and I asked a lot of questions, especially in the ambulance, so I got to learn a lot that day, yeah.
Conor: You, you experienced something that a lot of students thankfully don't experience in their time, uh, even when they have the skills to put it to use. Do you think this is something that might affect what you do for a living? Uh, we, we always like to talk to our seniors about what they're going to do post-graduation. Uh, did this change your idea about what you might do in the future?
Ethan: Um, definitely. I always thought that I would stray away from really high-pressure jobs and jobs that just happen really fast in a snap, like, um, a paramedic or an EMT. But I think after that and after some reflecting, I believe that I could definitely do those jobs, and I think Ms. Dahl has always pointed me in the direction of like, anything medical, but I think this really helped point me in the direction that I want to go.
Conor: Definitely calm under pressure. You, you've got the proof there, like put that on your resume.
Doug: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. When, when we first heard about the story, we heard about the CPR, the AED. I didn't think about, basically you became incident commander until 911 showed up. That is something I wouldn't put on any young person, you know, but you were there and you took charge and, and got a great result. Kristyn, you were at the fire station yesterday, too. What were they saying about incidents like this and the survival rate?
Kristyn: That's, that was what was really exciting for me. Um, so when Ethan was doing his tour, they were talking with me about the fact that they were shocked that h, that Vincent had already been shocked by an AED. So by the time incident command got there and EMTs and paramedics got there, they could not believe that three rounds of CPR had been given, a shock had been given. And so they just kept kind of asking like, "Really?" And so it took them, um, medicine, another shock, and more compressions to get Vincent back. And so what Ethan and his auntie did was give Vincent enough oxygenation to his brain, they definitely bought some time until the professionals got there.
Doug: Boy, Conor, Conor makes fun of me because I say "wow" on this show a lot, but wow, I'm just...
Kristyn: The more I learned yesterday, too, the more wows I had. I mean...
Doug: Yeah, you're more mature than me, Ethan, today, let alone when I was in high school. I was, yeah, good grief.
Kristyn: Well, and he's just such a calm kid anyway, and then I asked the family, too, and they were like, "Yes, he's just kind of this stoic, you know, person that, I'm shocked that you didn't think you could handle under-pressure jobs, cause I think you'd excel."
Doug: That's exactly who you'd want in charge of a very stressful situation.
Kristyn: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
Conor: Yeah, so Ethan, obviously you got a lot out of, uh, Ms. Dahl's class, but if, if you were talking to a younger student, maybe someone a freshman who's just coming into school, what would be kind of your sales pitch to get them to come and take this class?
Ethan: I think Ms. Dahl's class helped me, uh, grow my opportunities and start talking to people. I definitely got really out of my comfort zone and started branching out my, uh, my connections with people and taking more opportunities. You definitely learn a lot, you definitely learn to ask more questions, and I think it helped me in a lot of my other classes. Getting out of your comfort zone and then preparing you for the next level after high school.
Doug: Amazing. Kristyn Dahl, sports medicine teacher here at Spanaway Lake High School. Ethan, senior at Spanaway Lake High School. Thank you for joining us today, thanks for sharing your story.
Conor: Well, thank you again to Ethan and Kristyn Dahl. What an amazing story; I'm so glad we were able to hear that. And we will be back next week with some fresh content for you.
Doug: We definitely will. The fresher, the better. We are the freshmakers here at the Bethel School District. Thanks for listening, everybody. Wherever you listen to, be sure and leave us a thumbs up or a comment. If you're listening to us on 101.9 Radio Tacoma, thanks for listening there, and we'll be back next week.
 

In a world flooded with AI generated content and online clutter, helping kids figure out what’s real isn’t always easy. On this week’s show, we sit down with two of our district's teacher-librarians who share how their exclusive summer experience at the Library of Congress is giving local students the tools to navigate online information with confidence. From historical maps to hands-on programs like Battle of the Books, we’ll learn how primary sources and great reads are sparking curiosity and building critical thinking across our schools. New episodes drop on Wednesdays wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also hear us on 101.9 Radio Tacoma, Saturdays at 2 p.m. Be sure to like, comment, subscribe, and share with a friend! bethelsd.org/podcast
--TRANSCRIPT--
This transcript was automatically generated by Gemini from the original audio file. While it aims for high accuracy, it may contain minor discrepancies from the original audio.
Conor: Hey, everybody! I'm Conor, that's Doug, and this is the Bethel School District Presents podcast, and today we are talking with two of our fantastic district librarians, both of whom went to Washington, D.C. over the summer to attend a very prestigious opportunity at the Library of Congress. In fact, they were the only two librarians in the entire state of Washington to do that.
Doug: They sure were. The focus of the trip was learning about the importance of primary sources and clever ways to teach that to students. And what could be more important, Conor, in this day and age when misinformation is rampant and skepticism is at an all-time high?
Conor: Right you are. And that's actually one reason we kick off each show with useless trivia. Our regular listeners will notice that we always ask each other to provide our sources.
Doug: Just setting a good example for the kids out there.
Conor: And when someone asks how you know something, FYI, Google is not an appropriate answer.
Doug: No, and Facebook is definitely not an answer.
Conor: Well, speaking of all this stuff, Doug, let's not delay our good listeners any longer. What do you got for us? What's your useless trivia this week?
Doug: Well, we're talking about the Library of Congress today, so I was thinking about books, I was thinking about just all the different kind of resources they have there. And so, Conor, did you know that in 2025, there were 4.2 million books published, and my source on this is Bowker. They're the official ISBN agency for the United States.
Conor: That is a lot of books. How many of those did you read?
Doug: I've read... That's a... It's classified. I also looked up... So 4.2 million books. According to YouTube and Alphabet Investor Relations, there were 500 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute of 2025. That translates to 720,000 hours of footage a day and approximately 7.3 billion video uploads last year.
Conor: Who's watching all this?
Doug: I watched all of it.
Conor: Okay. Glad it's not going to waste.
Doug: But no books. Didn't read any books.
Conor: Well, you and I were actually a little simpatico this week, because my useless trivia is actually book-related as well. So, Doug, you know when you go into a used bookstore or library, you get that wonderful old book smell?
Doug: I love that smell.
Conor: I also love that smell, but did you know that's actually the books decaying?
Doug: That's horrific.
Conor: I know, it's kind of a downer, but as paper ages, cellulose and lignin break down, and they release volatile organic compounds. Researchers have described some of the resulting aromas as resembling vanilla, almonds, grass, and chocolate, so not so bad. So that wonderful old library smell is technically the books dying.
Doug: Fantastic fact. What's your source this week, Conor?
Conor: My source is a 2017 peer-reviewed study in Heritage Science conducted by researchers at University College London. They chemically analyzed the volatile organic compounds emitted by an old book at the historic St. Paul's Cathedral.
Doug: Man, I need scientists to get on bottling that odor, putting it into a candle so I can light that up around my house and just have that old book smell, the smell of dying literature.
Conor: You know, you could just get books, Doug.
Doug: Never, I'm too busy watching YouTube. Well, Conor, let's get on with our show today. Why don't you welcome our two guests to the show?
Conor: Joining us today are two of our amazing teacher librarians. We've got Jerilyn Gerhardstein from Expedition Elementary and Amy Dalin from Kapowsin Elementary. The two of you recently got back from a pretty amazing experience in Washington, D.C. You were only two of about 90 teachers, librarians from all around the country that got to do this. Why don't you start off by telling us what you did?
Amy Dalin: We got to attend the Library of Congress Teacher Institute. Our cohort was 26 people, and it just happened that Jerilyn and I had applied. We didn't tell each other, we just like applied randomly, and then we didn't know we were in each other's cohort until we were all in a group chat, and we were like, "Oh wait, we know each other." And so, we got to meet with 26 amazing educators from mostly the East Coast. We were the only two from the West Coast. We got to work with librarians and history teachers and English teachers, and the whole goal and premise of it was to talk all about primary sources.
Jerilyn Gerhardstein: And they told us some really creative ways to teach about primary sources, looking closely at at a source, and then having the kids walk through it. So, to kind of build excitement and interest. And we would do lessons for each other, we did some mini-lessons, and they were all super excited to learn. So, it's really fun to be with lifelong learners.
Conor: I bet. That's such a cool opportunity.
Doug: And I love that you focused on primary sources. Those really force you to look at the original proof of something instead of taking somebody else, like two knucklehead podcasters', word for it. So, how do you use that concept in the library with kids and build solid media and social media literacy in in young students?
Jerilyn Gerhardstein: Well, the Library of Congress has a lot of free-to-use pictures as well as audio clips and video, and so you can download those for free, and you can use them like I did when I presented in front of the librarians, and I will do this with my students where you show just a portion of it. And then kind of build interest, have the kids first just look, observe, see what they see, then what they think it might be about. So, they're reflecting, and then questioning with "I wonder" statements, and that just builds interest. And I I think it could be a a great way to start, like we talked about, the inventor lessons with CKLA for fourth grade. It's a great way to introduce biographies. It's a really great asset to use with our lessons.
Amy Dalin: Yeah, we focus a lot in fourth and fifth grade on like research and building research skills, and primary sources is an incredible source for students to use that often times I think they will just like Google, like, you know, "Abraham Lincoln," and then you get a secondary source that's, "Abraham Lincoln was born on, blah, blah, blah." But then you have primary sources where it's like letters written by Abe Lincoln or about Abe Lincoln, or newspaper articles, or actual pictures of him. And I think that adds more context to them, and it kind of gets them more interested, I think, in the topic or the unit that you're talking about.
Conor: The other great thing about primary sources, and especially in relations to younger kids, is with the rise of AI, it's so hard to know, especially if you're a younger learner, what's real, what's not real. And this is a really interesting way for them to actually see these things firsthand. And so, not only are they getting that interesting aspect of seeing the audio-visual element, but they're you're kind of showing them what they can trust, what they can't trust, and that's going to be so vitally important for the rest of their lives.
Doug: The Library of Congress has millions of primary sources, original letters. One of you even mentioned they have the copyright for the "I Have a Dream" speech. That's That's a little piece of history that people don't always think about. What What's something that stuck out to both of you?
Amy Dalin: We got to go to the rare books, and so we got to see like a 1200 copy of Aesop's Fables written in Latin, which was incredible, and like I was like, "Can I breathe this close to it?" They also had a 1940s copy of Aesop's Fables, which was written in English, but it was really cool to see how like the pictures were very similar because they're the same stories, but they've been like passed down from generation to generation. So, even in Latin versus in English, you have the same pictures, and so it's kind of beautiful in a way that you can be like, "Wow, these pictures are the same, and the stories have maintained the same kind of lessons behind them."
Jerilyn Gerhardstein: And I really liked the maps section. So, you can, and I looked at Puyallup. I went online to look up, "What did Puyallup look like in the 1800s, and what does it look like today?" And having and centering a lesson around that to kind of, maybe at the beginning of the school year, "This is your hometown, and look at how it's changed over time." And because students don't really necessarily look at maps anymore either, and so it's really fun to see and layer the maps on top of each other so they can see and look for the differences. And so that it's close reading, and then maybe you could do a lesson on mapping, so...
Conor: It It really is like insane how much just like American artifacts are in the Library of Congress. When Doug and I were doing our little bit of research prior to the show, we got kind of hung up on just the list, the incredible incredible list of things that are in the Library of Congress. Things like Thomas Jefferson's handwritten Declaration of Independence. Like, what?
Doug: Yeah, and Jerilyn, in your training, you just said the Library of Congress has the biggest comic book collection in the world.
Jerilyn Gerhardstein: Yes, 165,000.
Doug: And that's printed copies.
Jerilyn Gerhardstein: Unique, yes. Unique, and they're digitized, so you can look them up from the 1930s to today.
Doug: Yeah, that's fantastic. So, they have Amazing Fantasy #15, that's the first appearance of Spider-Man. And not only do they have that, donated in the early 2000s was the original black-and-white art for that issue by Steve Ditko, the artist of it. And that's just one piece of Americana that's in the Library of Congress.
Jerilyn Gerhardstein: Yeah, if it's been copyrighted, it's there.
Conor: That's so incredible. I mean, just like the depth and breadth of available information there is like just, it goes forever, it seems like.
Amy Dalin: I think we didn't realize that until we got there, and then they were like, "No, we have all this, and we have all these artifacts, and everything's They're working on digitizing everything, and thousands of things are being digitized a day." And so, even if you're in Washington state, you can access a ton of things from the Library of Congress, which is helpful for students if they're researching, helpful for teachers if they need artifacts, helpful if you just are into history.
Doug: Well, to wrap things up, you're both librarians, you know all the books better than anybody. First, what are you both reading right now? And then second, what's a book you'd recommend to a student?
Jerilyn Gerhardstein: I just read Whistler by Ann Patchett, and I really enjoyed that book. And for the Battle of the Books this year, I just read Spy Ring... super good book. It actually is focused on the Revolutionary War, and it's based on true facts that there was this spy ring that would funnel information to General Washington, so that's kind of a neat thing. Yeah, it's a very neat book, and that's one of our battle books this year.
Conor: Amy, what about you? What are you reading?
Amy Dalin: I'm listening to an audiobook right now. I'm listening to The Martian... from Andy Weir. Yeah, I was like, yeah, and he also did Project Hail Mary.
Doug: Sorry, jumping in. I love Andy Weir. He's fantastic.
Amy Dalin: It’s Wil Wheaton who narrates it.
Doug: No, is it really? Oh, my god!
Amy Dalin: So, I highly recommend it. It's a wonderful audiobook, and so I've just been listening to that while I've been setting up the library this year.
Doug: Oh, that's great. Have you read Redshirts? Also narrated by Wil Wheaton, it's a Star Trek parody. It's fantastic. Yeah, really, really good. Jerilyn, you mentioned Battle of the Books, and that's a competition that's held at our elementary schools and our middle schools. There is one book this year that actually is on both lists. It's Monster Locker. How does that one book go from middle school to elementary school?
Jerilyn Gerhardstein: Well, it is a graphic novel, and so they're always written at usually somewhere between 2.4 and 3.0 as far as reading range goes. And so, it's kind of nice, maybe you want to encourage middle schoolers that are maybe not reading at a super high level to be able to participate. We really want everyone to participate in Battle of the Books, because reading is is a lifelong thing, and we love, obviously, to read. That's why we're librarians. Shocking! Breaking news right here!
Doug: Yeah, the Battle of the Books is really fun. All the kids, they compete at the school level, then the school forms, they have their kind of A-team, and they go to the district competition. It's like a quiz-style show. It's really fun. Parents can show up, community can show up, and just watch the kids really shine.
Amy Dalin: And it's a great way to introduce kids to different genres, so it's a great way to just kind of diversify what they're reading.
Doug: Awesome.
Conor: Well, Jerilyn Gerhardstein, Amy Dalin, thank you both for joining us.
Jerilyn Gerhardstein: Thank you so much for having us.
Conor: It was great.
Doug: Well, thank you again to Jerilyn and Amy for joining us this week. We had a great conversation with them.
Conor: Absolutely, and be sure to like, share, comment, and if you are in the Tacoma area, listen to us Saturdays at 2:00 at 101.9 Radio Tacoma.
Doug: And everywhere else, just find us on your favorite podcast platform, whichever one it is, and be sure to share it with a friend if you liked what you heard today. We'll be back next week.

What actually determines how long, and how well we live? This week we dive into the fascinating world of the Blue Zones and explore how the Parkland/Spanaway community is actively turning the tide on low life expectancy through movement, simple nutrition, and strong social connections. From free neighborhood fitness classes and pop-up cooking demos to walking school buses and community garden projects, discover how everyday, micro-level changes are creating a healthier, happier future for everyone. New episodes drop on Wednesdays wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also hear us on 101.9 Radio Tacoma, Saturdays at 2 p.m. Be sure to like, comment, subscribe, and share with a friend! bethelsd.org/podcast 
--TRANSCRIPT--
This transcript was automatically generated by Gemini from the original audio file. While it aims for high accuracy, it may contain minor discrepancies from the original audio.
Doug: Hey everybody, I'm Doug. That's Conor, and you're listening to the Bethel School District Presents podcast. And as our name implies, we have a very educational show for you today. In fact, one of the preeminent pontificators of Pierce County is joining us today. She is an expert in all things health, including diet, movement, connection, and purpose. That's right, we are talking Blue Zones today with Queena Tupou, and she's going to join us in just a few minutes after Useless Trivia. And Conor, that's where I'm going to kick it over to you.
 
Conor: Well, thank you there, Doug. And in honor of today's show, my Useless Trivia is all about longevity and health. And so, Douglas, did you know that the oldest person alive at this very moment is Ethel Caterham of the United Kingdom? Ethel was born August 21st, 1909, which means she just turned 117 years old. Congrats on that, Ethel, if you're listening, which I'm sure you are. That's old, but she's not close to the all-time record. That record, the oldest verified person ever, remains France's Jeanne Calment, who lived to be 122 years, 164 days. Source on both of those: Guinness Book of World Records.
Doug: Amazing, Ethel. Wish you were from Bethel. Congratulations, happy birthday. That's a fantastic piece of Useless Trivia, Conor.
Conor: And what do you got?
Doug: Nothing as tied to the show as that, unfortunately, but I have a fun fact. Did you know that every original James Bond book written by Ian Fleming was written in Jamaica?
Conor: I actually did know that, but only because you told me.
Doug: I guess we talk too much out of the show, I probably spoiled that one. But after discovering Jamaica during a naval mission in World War II, Ian Fleming bought a plot of land there, built a simple house, and he retreated there from January to March each year, getting away from those London winters. And during those three months in Jamaica, he would write a new James Bond book. He started with Casino Royale, and over 12 years, he wrote 14 Bond titles—that's 12 novels and two short story collections—entirely from Jamaica.
Conor: That's fascinating, and I too would like to work from Jamaica. Can we make that happen, Doug?
Doug: Let's call the superintendent right after this show. Joining us today now to get us back on track is Queena Tupou. She's the Executive Director for the Blue Zones Project Parkland-Spanaway. Queena, thanks so much for joining us.
Queena Tupou: Thanks for having me.
Doug: I'm really excited for our listeners to get to know you and the work that you and your team are doing. But first, let's talk about Blue Zones. A lot of our listeners watched the Netflix docuseries a few years ago called Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones, and we all saw remote places like Sardinia and Okinawa featured. These were places where people are amazingly healthy and living long, long lives. So for those that didn't see the show, what are the folks in the Blue Zones doing that the rest of us aren't?
Queena Tupou: Yeah, so a little bit of background about the Blue Zones. Blue Zones are areas of the world that have the most centenarians, so the most people that live over 100. And our founder, Dan Buettner, went out and researched these areas. He's who you'll see on the Netflix docuseries. And what he learned about these areas was that actually most of the people that live there live below the poverty level of those areas.
Doug: Interesting.
Queena Tupou: But they did four basic things, which we implement in the work that we lead here in Parkland-Spanaway. They encouraged folks to move more, eat wisely, connect, and have purpose. And those small changes that each of the communities implemented added on to longevity of their lives.
Conor: It's a really interesting concept and a really interesting thing to study, and kind of discover what are these things that may be driving this longevity. We're very curious, living here, what made Parkland-Spanaway a good candidate to bring this program?
Queena Tupou: I have to give a shout-out first and foremost to the sponsors, and it's the reason why we can do this work in Parkland-Spanaway. It's Pierce County, MultiCare, and Virginia Mason Franciscan Health. They're the ones who are contributing into making this project possible. When Blue Zones came into the area and did a discovery of Pierce County, it was discovered that Parkland and Spanaway had the lowest life expectancy than anywhere else in the county.
Conor: Wow.
Queena Tupou: And so, from there, that was how Parkland and Spanaway was selected as the community. It wasn't that they were like top scorers or anything. It was noticing that there was a need here, and also looking that it's an unincorporated area. There's not a lot of resources that are coming out here, that we really, as a collective with the sponsors and community partners, could make an effort to do more work in Parkland-Spanaway. And so that's initially why it was selected.
Doug: Yeah, that's a sobering fact for our listeners to hear about life expectancy here. The core Blue Zones philosophy—and you can correct me if I'm wrong on this—but it's that health isn't about willpower. It's about making the healthy choice an easy choice. What does that look like in practice for our folks here?
Queena Tupou: So, what that looks like in practice in Parkland-Spanaway, we take the four core values, which eating wisely, moving, connecting, and purpose, and we apply that into the community through three pillars: people, places, and policy. And so what we do to encourage that is we have currently a healthy pledge campaign that folks can go online to bzp-parklandspanaway.com and pledge to live a healthier life.
Two, we have health and well-being events throughout the community. We have movement classes that are available at no cost, and we try to make our movement classes available to all ages and families because we don't want there to be a barrier for them. Those movement classes can look like yoga, Mat Pilates—we added in July, in partnership with Day 1 Fitness, hip-hop step, which is a fun movement activity. Zumba, of course, is a fun one that's held at Brenda's Fit. Burrito's Boxing is every first Friday of the month. So there's just multiple ways that folks can get involved.
And even thinking of all ages, shapes, and sizes, Qigong at Trinity Lutheran Church is really meant for our elderly population. The other piece, we noticed there's no pools in this area, so we partnered with PLU Pool, and that's open every Tuesday of the summer. Our goal is hopefully to have more opportunities, but we know the school year's starting. But just recognizing there's not enough spaces for people to come out and gather. We're also putting on healthy cooking demonstrations, and so teaching people how you can cook with foods that you might find at a food pantry, or even just providing low-cost meals that you can make for your family, and we have amazing cooking instructors for that.
Conor: It's fascinating because it does really sound like you have this roadmap of these pillars and things that I'm sure are proven to work. But I'm curious because the original Blue Zones were obviously places where there was a high percentage of 100-year-olds and people living these healthy lives. We obviously don't have 100 years right now to figure out, "Okay, is this working or not?" So how does your team judge success as we go along in this project?
Queena Tupou: Yes. So, since we work under the Blue Zones national brand, the current assessment that Blue Zones is using is the Gallup Well-Being Index. That will be conducted again mid-September, and will last about a month in community. It's randomized. The last time we did it was 2025, and we have seen measurable changes here in Parkland-Spanaway community.
And so, that assessment has to be done in order for us to become a certified community. So I should kind of take a step back and say all of this work is for us to lead to become a Blue Zones Certified Community by January 31st when our project ends. And that has been the ultimate goal, and we have to show that through meeting all of our individual goals that was set locally with our partners and with Blue Zones national. We will be successful because that's just how my team works. We will get the certification for Parkland-Spanaway, and we'll be the first Blue Zones of Pierce County, and actually of the west side. Walla Walla is the first Blue Zones Project in Washington State.
Doug: That's amazing. Wow, just incredible work that your team is doing and really setting up the community to continue it forward even after we get the blue checkmark, which is great. Tell me about how Bethel School District fits into all of this. We heard you speak at an all-staff meeting recently where you talked about the work and the connection with Blue Zones and Bethel School District. Tell us about that.
Queena Tupou: We're working with schools, worksites, grocery stores, and restaurants through a list of items to move them forward in order to become a Blue Zones Approved organization. Bethel School District Education Service Center became a Blue Zones Approved worksite. Congratulations for that, which is the first within Bethel School District to become an approved worksite.
But basically means that you're meeting all of these well-being metrics and supporting your staff in becoming a Blue Zones Approved worksite. With schools, we typically come in and work with the principals to see what would you like as health and well-being programming, where we're there to increase capacity. And so for some of the elementary schools that we've worked with, we've helped to launch walking school buses. Really identify that some of the schools don't have safe, walkable routes.
Doug: Right.
Queena Tupou: And how can we highlight this with the county planning and public works while also encouraging the students to get involved and active in another way for a walking school bus. We've also held healthy cooking demonstrations within the classes themselves. Another way that we've engaged schools is school gardens. We understand a lot of the schools may have a school garden or may be interested in a school garden, and we've partnered with Pierce County Environmental Services to launch those school gardens.
Doug: That's amazing.
Conor: Yeah, it's really fascinating, and great that there are so many different avenues. It's not just about more movement or eating healthier, there are things that are kind of out of people's control that are more environmental things. But if someone was listening today and they wanted to make one small change in their life that could kind of more align themselves with the goals of the Blue Zones projects, what are a few things that you'd recommend for them?
Queena Tupou: Just remembering to eat wisely. So when you're out in the community, we don't have to eat till we're 150% full. I totally get it, I'm Pacific Islander, I get food can be part of culture, but remembering that, and remember you can also have a take-home box. Around movement, adding just little, small movements in your day. If you're at work, you can do a walking meeting, you don't necessarily need to always sit and meet all day. You can get up. Throughout your day, one thing we encourage too with worksites is 5-minute microbreak. Give your team the time to get up from their desk and remind them to go outside and maybe go for a walk. So at home, encouraging your loved ones maybe to go for a walk, not just grandparents, but your kids as well. Teaching them these small habits can be a part of your daily lifestyle is a great opportunity to connect.
Conor: So, you've been at this for a while now. Do you have any cool success stories you could share about people getting involved in the program?
Queena Tupou: Obviously, we have a lot of events. There are so many a week. My team is on the go, and I'm so blessed to have them. We recently just wrapped up our food crawl where we highlighted and spotlit the restaurants in Parkland-Spanaway. One gentleman actually attended all of the events, but what was beautiful about him, since we started engaging and having more conversations with him—I met him at the first food crawl event—and he had shared he goes to everything. He'll be at the PLU Pool, and then later on he goes to the gardening group, and then he'll attend one of the events at Sprinker.
So for someone who's retired, this has been a great opportunity to motivate him, to keep him going, and to make him feel like he's part of the community. He's retired military. It's great to see him as we host these events. He's popping around, he knows someone from another event. And just the community that has been built around this has been just the most successful story from it, but seeing those individual changes from folks who are participating and noticing their own health increase because of it has been beautiful to see.
Doug: Yeah, it's really amazing how all of those things compound and lead to living a healthier life. And I know our listeners, especially ones that have lived here a long time, have heard some common themes here: lack of a pool, lack of safe walking routes. And so I really love the work that you all are doing here and connecting with organizations all around the Parkland-Spanaway area to really make the world a better place for the folks that are living here. The work you all are starting here is just incredible, and Queena Tupou, thank you so much for joining us today.
Queena Tupou: Thank you.
Doug: Well, that was a really interesting conversation. Love the work the Blue Zones Project is doing in Parkland-Spanaway. It's amazing stuff. And while Queena was talking with us here, the rest of her team was actually out with our McKinney-Vento team. That's the team you heard about last week that helps our students who are experiencing homelessness. They were doing a giveaway, giving away bikes and all kinds of things getting ready for the start of school. Fantastic stuff.
Conor: Indeed it was. And if you liked what you heard, please join us next week or, if you're in the Tacoma area, listen to us on 101.9 Radio Tacoma Saturdays at 2:00. We'll see you next week!

On this week's show, we tour the brand new Bethel High School and share highlights from the grand opening event. Hear directly from students, staff, and local tribal partners as they reflect on what this milestone means for the future of our district. This building represents decades of planning, perseverance, and dedication to student success. A tremendous thank you goes out to our community whose unwavering support made this dream a reality! New episodes drop on Wednesdays wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also hear us on 101.9 Radio Tacoma, Saturdays at 2 p.m. Be sure to like, comment, subscribe, and share with a friend! bethelsd.org/podcast 
-TRANSCRIPT--
Conor: Hey everybody, I'm Conor, that's Doug, and this is the Bethel School District Presents Podcast, and we have a very, very special show, and I know we say that every week, but this week we actually mean it. This week is all about the brand-new Bethel High, and we were at the ribbon-cutting last Friday, and, boy, was it a special afternoon, Doug. But before we get to that, as we always do, we're starting with our little useless trivia section. Doug, what do you got this week?
Doug: Well, I got a good one, and mine is tied to the ceremony in that I welled up with tears a little bit at the ceremony, and this movie makes me well up with tears, too. Conor, did you know back in the 1980s, they were making a little movie and they auditioned 8,000 girls to play this one role? Any ideas what that role was?
Conor: I'm going to guess Annie?
Doug: That is it, man! Off the top of your head, too. Very well done. Back in 1980, they began auditions for the movie version of Annie. 8,000 girls auditioned, and Aileen Quinn eventually won the role. Now, a lot of people don't know that Aileen was also in the Broadway production of Annie. She was what they call a swing orphan, meaning that she was trained to play any of the orphans except for Annie. How about that?
Conor: That's impressive work on her part and good job. She nailed it in the movie. And Doug, what's your source on this one?
Doug: My source this week is Mental Floss: 15 Hard Knock Facts About Annie. Conor, what do you got for us this week?
Conor: Well, I am also trying to tie my useless trivia into this week's show in that it's about a big, beautiful building, just like our new Bethel High School. So, Douglas, did you know that the Burj Khalifa is so tall, you can actually watch the sunset twice?
Doug: How is that possible?
Conor: So let me break it down. The 2,722-foot Dubai skyscraper is high enough that the sun sets about two to three minutes later near the top than it does at ground level. So, in fact, in 2011, Dubai's Islamic Affairs authorities actually advised the residents on floors 80 to 150 to wait an extra two minutes before breaking their Ramadan fast, and those above the 150th floor to wait three, 'cause the sun was still visible from that high up.
Doug: Yeah, it is an amazing building, for sure, and I love the Burj Khalifa's cameo in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol where Tom Cruise is hanging off the side of it and really did those stunts. That was pretty, pretty incredible.
Conor: It certainly was. And speaking of incredible, let's get right into the show because we had the chance to see the incredible new Bethel High School on Friday, and what a ceremony that was!
Doug: Do you think Tom Cruise would come hang off that building?
Brian Lowney: It is an absolute joy to welcome you all, finally, to the new Bethel High School.
Doug: That is Superintendent Brian Lowney at the official dedication for the brand-new Bethel High.
Brian Lowney: Looking out across this room, seeing our incredible community partners, our tribal partners, parents, colleagues, and, most importantly, our students gathered together here today, my heart is incredibly full. Years ago, well before my time here, during some of the long planning sessions, county water modeling reviews, or legislative hurdles, it must have been very hard for many of you to envision today. But through every twist and turn, the warmth, resilience, and spirit of the Bethel family kept us moving forward.
Conor: And move forward we shall. One of the first speakers at the dedication was Brandon Reynon, Director of the Tribal Historic Preservation for the Puyallup Tribe.
Brandon Reynon: Ha-Ska-He-O, Twa-Kla-Poo, Twa-Kla-Poo, Twa-Kla-Poo-Dah-E-Shah, Dah-E-Shah, Dah-See-Yah-Yah-Yah.
Doug: That's Brandon beginning his remarks using the language of the Puyallup and Nisqually tribes.
Brandon Reynon: And I said See-Yah-Yah-Yah three times. In our language, when it's repetitive, it means the significance, the greater significance. And See-Yah-Yah-Yah in Lushootseed or Twulshootseed, the Puyallup and Nisqually language, that means family and friends.
Conor: And it was really amazing to hear Brandon speak so passionately about the history of the area, specifically where this high school's actually sitting.
Brandon Reynon: This location where the school was built is on the sacred lands of the Puyallup and the Nisqually people. Before the arrival of settlers, we were one people. We were not separated into two different tribes. And the area in which we stand is significant. That is where our people gathered, where our youth would follow their fathers, and young women would follow their mothers, and gather, and hunt. In those places, they would share their stories. This is where our history was taught. This is where our lessons were taught, were on these trail systems. They became temporary homes and permanent homes throughout the year.
Doug: That trail system he's talking about stretched all the way from the Puget Sound to Yakima and beyond.
Brandon Reynon: When settlers arrived and the trail system was destroyed and lost, we didn't know where the trail system was. It wasn't until the Puyallup Tribe asked for an archaeological study when this building was being constructed. And in that study, we discovered over 200 Native American artifacts—Puyallup, Puyallup and Nisqually artifacts. We discovered a handful of homestead artifacts as well on on this same property. But more importantly, we were able to once again identify this trail system. So, once again, we have this center where we can learn and grow. And that's Bethel, this new Bethel High School, which my children will be attending as well. They're they're the future classes here in just a few years. So I'm I'm invested just as much as you are in this school. And this school will now be a same place that it'll be just like we did thousands of years ago. This will be a place where children will gather, they will they will learn stories, they will learn our language, they will learn other languages. They will be able to learn and and adapt and appreciate other cultures, not just from here, but from around the ancient and around the country.
Conor: It was really cool hearing the history of this land and how it's coming full circle from a place of learning back to a place of learning. Very, very cool stuff.
Doug: It was indeed. Well, the next speaker had people drawing their eyes, and I was one of them.
Brian Lowney: So would you please welcome our superintendent, Mr. Thomas Seigel.
Conor: I really love how Superintendent Lowney introduces him as our superintendent. Tom Seigel served our district as superintendent for 23 years, and the ovation that greeted him showed it. He got a standing O that lasted nearly a minute, and everybody was excited to see him.
Tom Seigel: Thank you very much. My kids aren't going to see a video of this. They won't believe that. That's wonderful. Thank you so much.
Doug: It was absolutely great to have him back in Bethel, and nobody knows the history of the new Bethel High School project, which stretches back to the early 2000s, better than Tom.
Tom Seigel: Old Bethel High has served us well for a very long time. But when I got here a quarter of a century ago, the building was already in serious trouble from the standpoint of overcrowding and could not really support all the needs of the students. The opening of Graham-Kapowsin High School helped relieve the crowding, but the old building itself still lacked a great deal of what was needed. Remember, Old Bethel High opened in 1952. I was three years old. And there were no computers for kids or for anybody at that time. New Bethel High School is actually a culmination of 25 years of planning from when it was first envisioned to acquiring the property from the Crate family, whose son, U.S. Air Force Staff Sergeant Casey Crate, a Bethel High School graduate, was killed in Iraq in 2005, to surviving numerous legislative challenges in the process at the state and county level in order to use this land, including successfully bringing a lawsuit, to working through all the related federal, state, and county land use and zoning requirements, which would have caused the faint of heart to run away. But the team at Bethel did not quit, and as a result, we have this beautiful facility today. Additionally, by providing this new facility, students and teachers have tangible evidence that the community really cares for them and their future. This is an important psychological boost and sets the stage for truly amazing student success.
Conor: It absolutely all comes back to students here in Bethel. Everything we do is done with them in mind.
Doug: And Tom mentioned the community's support. Let's hear more about that.
Tom Seigel: But I want to especially recognize the members of the Bethel community who trusted us and supported the bond measure to make this project a reality. Your trust will be kept, and New Bethel High will be a truly magnificent place for students to learn. Thank you.
Conor: Well said, Superintendent Seigel. We can't say enough about our community. Thank you, voters, and thank you, everyone, who stood by and supported this project.
Doug: Now, Tom mentioned this in his remarks we just heard, but I want to circle back for a second. The Crate family sold some of the land to the district where the high school sits now, and part of the new building is the Casey Crate Memorial Plaza, which honors him and other Bethel High School graduates who have gone on to serve their country. I got to spend some time with Linda Crate and her family after the ceremony, took photos of them out by the plaza. Linda looked around and said Casey used to ride his bike near there when he was young. She also told me that she wished the names of all the Bethel students who graduated and then served in the military could be on the wall, too. It was a really special visit with them.
Conor: Yeah, that was absolutely a special moment. And Doug, I'm going to hit you with a little bit of bonus useless trivia. This one actually has some use. I was on a little walking tour after the ceremony, and I heard someone say something very interesting. The new Bethel High is actually an eighth of a mile long from the front door to the back door, as they say.
Doug: That is impressive! A great place to get your steps in, for sure.
Conor: There is so much to love about the building. It really is stunning. Let's hear from Sara Coccia, our Director of Construction and Planning.
Sara Coccia: Sure. The size and the scale of the campus is impressive. But what I appreciate most is that the building was designed around how students learn and how they will use the school every day. There are flexible learning spaces, collaborative areas, career and technical education opportunities, athletics and performing arts spaces, and places throughout the building where students can gather, connect, and belong. While a school building is made of brick, steel, glass, wood, and thousands of other individual pieces, a school is not really a building. Rather, a school is a place where a student discovers something they didn't know they could do. It is where a teacher changes the direction of a young person's life. It's where friendships are made. It is where students learn to work together, to overcome setbacks, celebrate successes, and begin to imagine what comes next. And I hope for that, for generations of Bethel students, this becomes a building filled with those moments.
Conor: The new school also boasts a dedicated welding classroom, a gigantic industrial kitchen for culinary students, and a 500-seat auditorium complete with an orchestra pit.
Doug: That space is so impressive. As I was walking around the building after the ceremony, the word I kept hearing from people was "wow." And when I went into the auditorium, a mom was leaving with her two kids, and she was literally wiping tears away, just saying, "wow," and how impressed she was with what she'd seen.
Conor: Yeah, that space is really cool, and nobody knows more about the impact this building will have on the students than our students themselves. So let's hear from a couple of them now. First up is Kekoa, an incoming freshman.
Kekoa: Walking into this building for the first time, everything felt big, modern, and full of possibility. I'm especially excited about joining the band. The new practice rooms, the equipment, and the space built for music makes me feel proud to be part of something that's growing. And beyond band, there are so many activities, clubs, and opportunities here for every student to find their place. Today isn't just about opening a building. It's about opening a future. And as freshmen, we get to be the first class to write the beginning of that story.
Doug: It is so cool to be the first class that will have all four years at that brand-new school.
Conor: I can only imagine! Next up, a student who will get one year at the new school, she's a senior. Her name is Ava.
Ava: With moving into a new school comes many past memories of the old school we once knew: the small hallways, crowded classrooms, packed portables, and loud cafeteria. For many of us, it will be hard to forget. Yes, Old Bethel may have been smaller than what we have now, but it gave us so much opportunity to be the students and staff that we are today. This environment gave us the chance to make good friends and relationships that some of us will carry on with us for the rest of our lives. This new building not only brings opportunities for everyone, but a great place for students to find who they are along with who they might meet. With these new big halls, larger classrooms, and great commons areas, this gives many students the chance to meet more people that can bring light into their life, just as my friends, who I once met in the crowded lunchroom, walked into mine.
Doug: I always love hearing from our students, but let's give the last word today to School Board President Marcus Young.
Marcus Young: And so as we walk around this building on today, and as we continue with our lives as we move forward, it is my hope that you will have that same "wow" and that same sentiment of amazement and anticipation, not just at the greatness of this structure, and not just at the beautiful architectural prowess that it took to make what we have, not in the beautiful theater that we have and the great big football field, but it is my hope that you will have "wow" rooted in you at the fact that this will also represent the place where lives will be changed. It will also represent students that will come, and they'll come into this building and be provided with hope. And lastly, it can represent the dreams that will be birthed here, that will be inspired here, and that will be fulfilled here. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Bethel High School, home of the Bison. Thank you so much.
Conor: Well, we hope you enjoyed the show today, and be sure to like, comment, subscribe, and share the show any way you like. New episodes come out on Wednesdays on your favorite podcasting platforms, and as of now, you can hear us Saturday afternoons at 2:00 on 101.9 Radio Tacoma.
Doug: And we are closing out the show with the Bethel High Pep Band. They performed before, during, and after the festivities, and they're taking us out with "Low Rider."
Conor: We'll be back next week, everybody. Hey, and someone's got to tell these kids we need a little more cowbell!

For students experiencing homelessness, getting across the graduation stage can feel nearly impossible. But our graduation rate for these youth just jumped to 84%. On this week’s show, we dive into the real-world efforts making that happen, from connecting kids with after-school programs and basic necessities to providing one-on-one math tutoring at the local library. We’ll also share student success stories and much more! 
New episodes drop on Wednesdays wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also hear us on 101.9 Radio Tacoma, Saturdays at 2 p.m. Be sure to like, comment, subscribe, and share with a friend! bethelsd.org/podcast 
 
-TRANSCRIPT--
This transcript was automatically generated by Gemini from the original audio file. While it aims for high accuracy, it may contain minor discrepancies from the original audio.
Doug: Hey, everybody, I'm Doug. That's Conor, and you're listening to the Bethel School District Presents podcast. We have a fantastic show for everybody this week, but before we get started, be sure and like, comment, subscribe, share with a friend. We'd love for you to share the show far and wide, just like Radio Tacoma 101.9 is doing, Saturdays at 2:00 PM. You can hear us there every weekend. And this week, we are talking about students who are experiencing homelessness and the hurdles they have to overcome to get to the graduation stage. And we have some amazing results to talk about. You're going to hear some stories and hear from some folks here that work very closely with those students. That's coming up in just a minute. But first, Conor, it's time for useless trivia. What do you got for us this week?
Conor: It absolutely is, and summer's winding down, so I thought I'd take one last hurrah and give us a summer-ish-themed useless trivia. So, Douglas, did you know that the Popsicle was invented by accident by an 11-year-old?
Doug: Really?
Conor: It's true! In 1905, Frank Epperson mixed powdered soda flavoring with water and accidentally left it outside overnight with a wooden stirring stick in the cup. Happened to be an unusually cold night in the San Francisco Bay Area, and by morning, the drink had frozen around the stick. Epperson apparently tried it, he liked it, and began sharing the frozen treats with other kids. But here's the weird part: he waited nearly 20 years to do much about the idea. As an adult, Epperson began selling the treats and applied for a patent in 1923. In 1924, the patent for a "frozen confectionery" designed to be eaten by holding a stick—no plate, no fork, no spoon—he originally called the invention the "Epsicle," combining his name Epperson with icicle. His own children didn't like that; they reportedly started calling them "Pop's sicles," which inspired the name "Popsicle."
Doug: How about that?
Conor: And my source on that, 'cause I know you're about to ask...
Doug: I'm a stickler.
Conor: ...is Smithsonian Magazine. What about you, Douglas? What do you got this week?
Doug: Well, I love that you took us back to 1905. My useless trivia isn't going to go back that far, but we will go back to the greatest era of all the eras: the '80s, Conor! 1982, when the US Border Patrol decided they were going to do a roadblock on US 1. That's the sole highway connecting the Florida Keys to the mainland, and they were checking vehicles for drugs and other things. This resulted in a traffic jam 17 miles long. And you know who didn't like that? The mayor of Key West, Conor. He seceded from the United States. That's right. Key West seceded from the Union and declared war on the United States. Before I go further, my source is CBS News. This actually happened. Key Westers literally attacked federal forces and naval officers, hurling volleys of stale Cuban bread, water balloons, and conch fritters. Exactly one minute later, the mayor surrendered to a US naval officer and promptly requested a billion dollars in foreign aid for post-war reconstruction. The whole stunt actually did work, and the blockade was removed from US 1.
Conor: Wow, the world's shortest civil war. I love it! And not a violent one, so we love that. But I don't blame him, that kind of traffic jam would drive me nuts as well.
Doug: Yeah, absolutely. And let's not be a traffic jam of nonsense getting in the way of what people came to listen to.
Conor: Joining us today is friend of the pod, Darius Alexander. And Darius is back with a whole new title: he is now the Director of Equity, Access, and Community Engagement. And that title is the result of the merging of two of our departments: our Community Connections team and our Equity and Achievement team. Both of those departments do amazing, tireless work to remove barriers for our students.
Doug: So, Darius, to talk about what that means, you actually grew up here in Bethel, and you've said before your elementary and middle school years were actually tough ones. What kind of barriers did you face as a kid, and how does your department make sure other kids aren't facing the same things?
Darius Alexander: My primary barriers were really just like finding a place to belong, and just being transparent, from 2nd grade to about 11th grade, I was a kid that got made fun of a lot, just really had a hard time connecting. I like to say I was a good bad kid, but a lot of times that means you're stuck in the middle, and where do you really fit in? Grades are really important to me, but fighting to be popular was important to me, so it's really about that sense of belonging. And then also, just the nature of our world, my family is from the Deep South, my parents grew up in the civil rights movement, and so that was an adjustment of trying to figure out where do you fit in in a diverse, but still divided community also.
Doug: Absolutely, that had to be tough. So what kind of work does your team do now to make sure that kids can find out about opportunities and get around the things that are in the way of them sitting in class and learning?
Darius Alexander: One of the main things that I'm super proud of for our department is really working with parents, community members, and community organizations to help kids find something to connect to. Out in our area, we don't have the Boys & Girls Clubs and all those kind of things, and our staff, they do a—they do a lot of work and we have a lot of invested people in our buildings, but how do we provide more opportunities for kids to connect to their school communities? So we're able to bring in organizations to run after-school programs, to run weekend programs, to come in schools and do mentoring. So really just navigating those systems and trying to figure out how can we bring in more support has been amazing.
Conor: Yeah, another thing that your department has been doing for a long time now is you have equity teams in every building. Can you tell us a little bit about what that is all about and what they're doing to help students?
Darius Alexander: At a super high level, each school comes with its own community, own culture. So equity teams are really charged with identifying what that culture is, what's the school climate, and working with students to try to figure out what's working and what's not working, and really expanding the definition of equity and then also our efforts. So one thing I'm really passionate about is equity goes so much further than just the surface level of what we can see when kids walk into the building. So it's really the charge of the equity teams to try to figure out what are those things, what are the barriers for our students, and how can we help them win.
Doug: That's really important work, and I think anybody that meets you would come away with the fact that you have a lot of pride in your work, in your team, and also in your community. You grew up here, you live here, and you've said community pride is something you actually want to see more of. Tell me about that.
Darius Alexander: Growing up here, when I was younger, especially like in high school, our school was so connected. We didn't have social media and things like that that makes our kids' world bigger, which it's a great thing, but then also at the same time, I see just this sense of we lose that pride of showing up and feeling like we really belong to something. One thing I've been really passionate about and really trying to drive out in the community is, because of where we are, how do we get people to show up for our kids? How do we show our kids that, one, that they—that they matter? How do we show up and cheer these kids on so that they say, "My community takes pride in me as a human being," which then takes helps me take pride in my school, the street I grew up in, the neighborhood that I'm in, and our district as a whole.
Conor: Yeah, and one way we can build that community pride is to teach the next generation. And recently, I heard an interview with you, and you said something that was kind of provocative. You said, "As adults, we don't always set a good example of how to handle conflict." What can we do to strive to change that?
Darius Alexander: I think it's all about self-reflection. That's something I really try to push myself in. I'm—I'm very, very hard on myself, but I just think overall we have to stop and pause and say, "How am I showing up?" In every situation and every aspect of our lives, how am I showing up? And especially when it comes to dealing with young people, am I setting an example for them that's going to help them? I keep saying "win," but I mean, how are we going to help them succeed? How are we going to help them find value in themselves and see the contributions that they can make? And let's be completely real about the nature of our world right now. We all have our different backgrounds, our different opinions, and adults have really set the tone of, if you don't agree with me, we can't come together, we're going to argue. Our kids are seeing all of that, but then we still expect them to show up and get along.
Doug: Yeah, that's a really tall hurdle for anybody to overcome, especially with the way society is right now. But before we let you go, Darius, let's circle back to the work you and your team are doing here in the district. You're removing barriers for students so they can make it across the graduation stage. As a district, we have a 91% graduation rate. But when you break it down, you start to look at subgroups—and that could be anything from racial groups to male/female, things like that—it's not true for every subgroup. They're not hitting that 91% threshold, and that's because of the barriers that are in front of them. One group that we look at is our students that are experiencing homelessness. Now, we're not going to spoil the numbers because, honestly, as soon as you leave, we have another guest coming in, and we're going to talk all about that. But talk about the work that your team does all year long supporting students that are experiencing homelessness.
Darius Alexander: Well, one thing I really want to highlight is it's really a collective effort across our entire district and every role that we have in our district of trying to remove these barriers for kids and trying to figure it out. And that's one thing I pride myself on for our team, and that I'm super thankful to be a part of that team for, is really trying to figure out how can we serve our schools, how can we serve our different departments to try to find out, first of all, what the needs of our students are. One thing I love and that I'm super passionate about is student voice. So we work with kids and their families to try to figure out what is it that they need versus what we think that they need. We're super intentional about getting out to schools to really try to work with our students, just building those relationships and making those connections with kids, and then also being intentional about inviting them to programs and educating them about our school system and our school district, of what opportunities are available to be involved. Do you have everything you need to participate in band, or an art club, or sports? I'm super proud of the work that we do, not only for our students experiencing homelessness, but for every single kid, regardless of their background.
Conor: That's fantastic. Well said, Darius. And thank you again for joining us today, Darius Alexander, our brand new Director of Equity, Access, and Community Engagement.
Darius Alexander: Thank you all for having me, appreciate you.
Doug: And we're back, and joining us in the studio is Unaccompanied Youth Navigator Tammi Booth. Tammi, welcome back to the show.
Tammi Booth: Hey.
Doug: Tammi is here with some amazing numbers, some amazing results of our McKinney-Vento—that's students experiencing homelessness. Their graduation numbers are at 84% this year. That is up from 79% last year. Tammi, this is amazing news, and congratulations on the work that you and your team are doing. So tell us about what all goes into getting these rates to keep going up. This is—this is fantastic.
Tammi Booth: Really, what it comes down to is Team Bethel, right? So, I'm there, yes, working with the students one-on-one, but like, it takes a team behind them. And I think like the presence of me there and—and pushing helps to kind of open the eyes to some of our staff to see what's going on, to be, you know, use more of our trauma-informed care with our students, so that way they can feel seen and supported, because our McKinney-Vento aren't traditional students.
Doug: Right, yeah. And we were talking earlier in the show about removing barriers for students. Students experiencing homelessness have a huge amount of barriers in front of them.
Tammi Booth: Yeah, absolutely. One of the biggest things that, you know, we do is we look at those—we start with those lower hierarchy of needs that Maslow's put out. So, you know, you're making sure that those basic needs are met, and then from there, transportation is huge for McKinney-Vento. So making sure that all of our kids, not only can they get to school, but they can get to every activity that they want to participate in, just like a housed student can.
Conor: So critical. The work you guys are doing is such amazing work. And, you know, a lot of times when we work in education, we hear these numbers and statistics, and you forget sometimes that every one of those numbers is an actual student. And these are students that you work with on a daily basis, and you get to see them grow and achieve these goals. Tell us what it's like, specifically at graduation, when you see a student cross that stage that maybe you've seen face these amazing, seemingly insurmountable hurdles, and then they've reached their goal. What does it feel like for you personally?
Tammi Booth: Yeah, when you look at like statistics and numbers, like I know like as a district those are important, but like you said, what I see is I see those students' faces. And graduation, it's like waking up on Christmas to me, because it's like you have worked so hard with this student, and to watch them, against so many things that are telling them they shouldn't be here, they're doing it. It's been really cool because our actual college-bound for our unaccompanied youth has increased greatly. Like, we have a kid who got into University of Washington's nursing program this year that, you know, is completely on his own, so...
Doug: Wow, that is incredible. Would you share a few stories with our audience about some of the students that you've helped and the barriers that you've helped them get past?
Tammi Booth: Yeah, absolutely. A story that really comes to mind is one of our students that just graduated that's actually bound for WSU. That was kind of like a last-minute decision. She thought, "I'm going to—I'm not going to get into college, I'm just going to apply," and we talked about like that this would provide more stability housing-wise, because she'd be able to live in the dorms. So she did apply, and she got in, but she had to take a math class that she hadn't taken yet. So it was already a couple weeks into that quarter, so we were able to work with the counselors and get her switched into that math class. Because she was behind—I mean, I always say it takes a village—so we reached out and found someone to help keep her up in her math and catch up, and we met that—it was a math tutor, and we met her at the Graham Library like once a week, and she passed, and she's—she's Coug bound, so...
Doug: That is amazing, and go Cougs! And we love seeing kids heading off after graduation to do amazing things, whether it's college, whether it's apprenticeship, whether it's going straight to work. Do you have any non-college-bound students you can tell us about?
Tammi Booth: Yeah, I have a young man who I'd worked with since freshman year. I remember when I first met him, and we talked about—it's one of the first questions I ask, like, "How important is graduation to you?", right? Because they have to have autonomy in this, and they have to make sure that this is what they want to do. No matter how much I want to do, they have to want it. And so freshman year, he's like, "No one in my family graduates, I'm not graduating." But, not only did he graduate, but he graduated early from Challenger, and over the summer I got back and I had a message from him. He graduated in March, and then got a job working in landscaping, and he sent me a video of him with his first car that he bought.
Doug: Oh my gosh.
Tammi Booth: Yeah, that was pretty cool. Like, that connection just keeps going. We're there supporting kids. I just got a phone call from a kid who graduated two years ago yesterday. So, like, those relationships that we build with kids are ongoing.
Conor: Yeah, and it does show that it—it like you—you gave a lot of credit to Team Bethel, and it shows like we have to all come together to help the students who are most vulnerable or need the most help. And it's great to see these results, and we can't wait to see the results that are going to keep coming year after year, 'cause you guys, we're seeing how hard you're working, and the sky's the limit, and these kids are so impressive, and we're just so excited about them.
Doug: Absolutely. Tammi Booth, thank you so much for joining us again on the show.
Tammi Booth: Yeah, thank you.
Conor: Well, thank you again to our guests this week, Tammi Booth and Darius Alexander. We will be back next week with a brand new episode.
Doug: And don't forget you can catch us Saturdays at 2:00 on 101.9 Radio Tacoma. And of course, we're still on everywhere that you listen to quality audio, be it Spotify, Apple News, Amazon Music, what have you. Come find us, come listen. We'll be back next week.

On this week’s show, you’ll meet some Bethel High School students who are getting a massive head start on their healthcare careers! We talk with four top “HOSA – Future Health Professionals” competitors and learn how they stepped out of their comfort zones, scored real-world experience, and found their future career paths. This is what happens when levy-funded programs give local students the hands-on opportunities they need to thrive. Thank you, voters! New episodes drop on Wednesdays wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also hear us on 101.9 Radio Tacoma, Saturdays at 2 p.m. Be sure to like, comment, subscribe, and share with a friend! bethelsd.org/podcast 
 
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This transcript was automatically generated by Gemini from the original audio file. While it aims for high accuracy, it may contain minor discrepancies from the original audio.
Conor: Hey everybody, I'm Conor, that's Doug, and you are listening to the Bethel School District Presents Podcast, and for the first time ever, some of you lucky folks are even listening to us on the radio.
Doug: That's right! Saturdays at 2:00 PM, you can hear us on 101.9 Radio Tacoma. Thanks so much to their board for picking up our show. We look forward to introducing your listeners to the amazing staff and students in our little corner of Pierce County right here.
Conor: And we have four of those amazing students joining us in just a few minutes. But first, Douglas, it wouldn’t be our show if we didn’t kick things off with a bit of useless trivia, so what do you got?
Doug: Well, I just finished reading a book about one Chuck Yeager. What do you know about old Chuck?
Conor: Love me some Chuck Yeager. The Right Stuff, he broke the sound barrier, right?
Doug: He absolutely broke the sound barrier, but he had a huge career before and after that. Huge—my voice broke there a little bit! But I'm pretty excited about old Chuck here. At one point, when he was training in California before going to World War II, one of his instructors was one Jimmy Stewart.
Conor: Well dang, that is a really interesting bit of useless trivia. Well done, Doug.
Doug: Well, that is not it, of course, because, as it's me, this is going to be a Wikipedia page of useless trivia. Again, sourced from a book that I read. So, while he was in World War II flying his P-51 Mustang, he actually was the first person to shoot down a jet. Now, the P-51 is a propeller plane, Germany had invented jet fighter airplanes, and old Chuck said the first time that he saw a jet engine, he shot it out of the sky, which I thought was pretty cool and a good saying. Not only did he fly in World War II, not only did he break the sound barrier, but 30 years later, he flew missions in the Vietnam War. Can you believe that?
Conor: That's a long time to be flying and shooting and doing all the stuff he was doing, but way to go, Chuck.
Doug: Yeah, really amazing, and I love digging into the history around people that you think you know what they did, and it turns out they did a whole lot more. So, Conor, over to you. What is your useless trivia this week?
Conor: Well, in honor of one of our great students that we're about to talk to, who is studying to be a criminal forensic scientist, I thought I'd go in that direction. So Douglas, did you know your ears are almost as unique as your fingerprints?
Doug: That's a very nice compliment, thank you, Conor.
Conor: Not you in particular! But while fingerprints are still the gold standard for identifying people, the shape of your outer ear is surprisingly distinctive. The curves and folds and little ridges on your ear, they develop before you're born and remain largely unchanged throughout your entire life. Researchers have actually studied ear recognition for decades, and some security systems and forensic investigators have even explored using ear shapes and occasionally ear prints left on things like windows or doors as a way to identify people. Isn't that fascinating?
Doug: Never heard of that.
Conor: I thought of ear prints really early on as you started talking, and I'm glad it came up at the end. What a bizarre thing. What's your source on that?
Conor: So, my source on this one is the Encyclopedia of Forensic and Legal Medicine on ear prints and forensic use. That's a mouthful.
Doug: I saw that on your bookshelf. I was wondering why it was there.
Conor: Yeah, I know. Light reading.
Doug: Well, let's go meet some of those students from Bethel High School right now. Conor, we're going to pack up the microphones, and we'll be over there in just a second.
Doug: Well, we are here at Bethel High School with four amazing soon-to-be seniors. We are chatting today with Madelynn, Joon, Marcella, and Kaydence, and these four ladies have done some pretty amazing things.
Conor: They certainly did, and we are here talking all about HOSA. And if you aren't familiar with HOSA, think of it as the Olympic Games for future healthcare professionals. It's a massive international student organization that prepares high school and college students for careers in the healthcare industry through intense, hands-on academic and clinical competitions.
Doug: And all the students at the table today that we're talking to placed in the top three in Washington State in their respective events. They are literally the best of the best.
Conor: They absolutely are, and they're doing really cool things, too. So, Madelynn and Joon, your focus is forensic pathology, and you had a really cool thing. You secured an interview with a medicolegal death investigator for Pierce County. Tell us about that.
Joon: Right. So, it basically started off one day. We really, really wanted some firsthand accounts to include in our tri-fold, which is what we were competing in, is displaying our tri-fold. And I just had the thought. We were in one of HOSA's meetings after school where it's just kind of a space for us to study and prepare for competitions, and I was like, "Why don't I just call and see if we can get in touch?" And so we stepped outside for a second, and I—at first I called Pierce County's just Sheriff's Office, and they referred me to Pierce County's Medical Examiner's Office. And they gave me the contact info for just, you know, a bunch of offices that I should email and just let them know what I'm doing, like, "Hey, we're just two high schoolers, and we really want to get in touch with some people that we really look up to." And just later that week, we got an immediate response from Ms. Sarah Pleshe. She's actually the lead, yeah, forensics leader of the whole team for Pierce County. And we sent her over a Google Doc full of different questions that we wanted to know from her, and she just edited her responses in, and it was really, really, really awesome.
Doug: That is an amazing interview to get. I think it's also really good advice for other students to reach out and just ask, because you found out people do want to chat, especially with students, about what they do. I think that's really cool. Madelynn, what is it about death investigators that fascinated you?
Madelynn: I feel like forensics usually gets a bad reputation due to it being so taboo, but me and Joon, honestly, we're really interested in forensics and death investigation as a whole to give clarification to grieving families and allow them to mourn in a positive way. Even if it's such a morbid thing, I would say it's a really beautiful thing as a whole because we're able to bring our community together.
Doug: Well said.
Conor: So, Kaydence, your event was respiratory therapy, and evidently you were so interested in this and got so hooked on it that you think you want to do that as a career now. What was it that was so special about that event that really hooked you?
Kaydence: I think what was so special about this event that I did was doing hands-on stuff. I was really kind of bored with the studying on books and just like knowing exactly, like, all the procedures I have to do, but like getting to do the procedures like in person and hands-on was definitely so fun to me, and I was very interested.
Doug: I really love that for you, that you found direction through this process. What were you thinking about as a career before this?
Kaydence: Um, it was nursing, but it was mainly because I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do, but I knew that I did want to be in the medical field.
Doug: I love that. And this kind of narrowed down your focus, that's fantastic. My mom was a nurse for many, many years. It's a great, great profession.
Conor: So Marcella, you took part in the life support skills. Can you tell us a little bit about what that was like for you?
Marcella: Well, um, part of the life skill support I did, I manage the boys basketball team, and part of the life skill support was stuff similar I did in basketball—the CPR and the, like, nasal stuff and taping—so I had like an idea of what I was doing.
Doug: That's really cool. So what made you want to become a sports manager to begin with?
Marcella: Well, um, I tried to get over like my fear of like being around people and all that, and also I needed stuff to do, and the coaches really liked me, and I had fun, so I'm about to be in year three doing it.
Conor: Why don't we go around the horn now and talk about what interested everyone initially in getting involved in HOSA. Joon, let's start with you.
Joon: I was always interested in forensics and being a part of the medical field and just helping people out. And so when I saw something that gave me an outlet and gave me connections and opportunities to network with just people in my local area and compete and just show off what I know and what I'm capable of, I thought, "I really, really want to do this." My sophomore year, I definitely took a leap and went way out of my comfort zone, and I joined HOSA, and I definitely stuck with it, even when it got really hard, and it definitely paid off. I'm very happy with my decision.
Conor: That's so cool that you took that initiative. Madelynn, what about you?
Madelynn: Um, I would say what got me into HOSA was just getting my foot into the medical field. My whole family has been involved in the medical field and everything, but really, I've always been interested in forensics because I think it is such an interesting topic that a lot of people don't know a lot about. I wanted to get a lot more clarification on it, and then when I found out about death investigating and how you can work in both the lab and on the scene, I thought, "That's two of my favorite things: critical thinking skills and also just biology as a whole." I think it's an amazing thing that to do.
Doug: That's amazing, finding something to put those two things together. Marcella, how about you?
Marcella: Well, some of the people suggested to me saying I would be a good fit in it, and I joined it, and I really love it.
Doug: Kaydence, round us out here. What got you into HOSA in the first place?
Kaydence: So, since freshman year, I've been a part of HOSA. Ms. Frady, who is the advisor for HOSA, was actually my home room teacher. So, as a wee little freshman, I went to her class, I was like, "Hey, tell me any medical clubs you know, 'cause I want to be a nurse in the future." And she's like, "Okay, there's HOSA. I run that club." And I've loved the community. I love being able to do so many different things and like kind of spread my horizon, I think that's the saying.
Joon: Yeah!
Conor: You said it confidently enough. Anything can be the saying.
Conor: Well, we know what Kaydence wants to do when she gets out of school. We haven't yet heard what Marcella, Joon, and Madelynn want to do. So Madelynn, you're—you're going to be a senior here. You got a little bit of time to think about it, but not much. What do you want to do when you graduate?
Madelynn: I have a plan A and a plan B. Definitely my future goal would be to become a death investigator. I was lucky enough to get a few internships through HOSA when I'm 18 over at the morgue and just being a Sheriff's cadet and getting a lot of information on law enforcement and what that entails. Also, I go to another school, Pierce County Skills Center, and I go—I'm in their program for pharmacy, so I've been able to get my license of certification being a pharmacy assistant. So definitely working in the pharmacy, getting a stable job income from there, and being a death investigator.
Conor: That's really amazing, and you're absolutely setting yourself up for success. We love that. Uh, Joon, what about you? What do you think you're going to do when you graduate?
Joon: I definitely plan to go to a university. I know that UW is extremely flexible with their science courses and then also their pathway to get a medical degree, um, because I will admit, I am pretty nervous about me changing my mind last minute. I know it's extremely common. Um, it said online that like 90% of high schoolers have a plan and vision in their mind for what they want to do once they graduate and the career that they plan for their future, but only about like 6% of them actually get there by the time that they're an adult. And so, I have found a lot of comfort and stability in forensics and uh, being a medicolegal death investigator, just because I've surrounded myself with that for so long, and I'm very comfortable with what I'm getting myself into, the pathway to achieve what I want to do. Um, but I will say that genetic counseling or reproductive counseling has perked my interest as in the last month, which is definitely exciting 'cause I thought I was extremely set on what I wanted to do for the longest time. But just now, I found something that I am definitely considering. So, uh, I'm definitely just leaving it open for now. I'm putting myself in a position where I do have a safety net to land on, uh, school with flexibility, a school that is understanding if you do want to change your mind. Um, but yeah, for now, I think I'll just plan to be in the medical field, and I'll see what specialties I want to go into next after that.
Conor: Yeah, that's so cool. And it's good to be flexible. Doug thought he was going to be in the NBA until like two years ago, and he's finally given it up, but it's settled into a nice career, haven't you, Doug?
Doug: Yeah, you picked, uh—you picked a topic I can't really riff on.
Madelynn: I wanted to say, besides pharmacy and forensics, me and Joon are pretty similar with our future plans, but definitely I'm thinking either UW Tacoma or UW Seattle. UW Seattle offers a really great clinical lab, but I know UW Tacoma is a lot more home, you know, and cozy. But I would say definitely major in Biomedical Sciences as a whole, and also minoring in Criminology is really what piques my interest for getting a bachelor's.
Joon: My brother, actually, he is kind of what made me realize that I need to let myself be open to change, even last-minute change, 'cause he was actually set on going to school for accounting at, I think, WAZZU. And last minute, the last day that college admissions were open for Berklee in Boston, he applied, and he got in with a crazy scholarship. And now, he's in a career where he's doing what he never would have even thought was possible. It's his dream job. He's going to school for being composed—a composer for films and writing music for films, and it's the coolest thing ever. And he goes to such a prestigious, high-achieving college that he always encourages me, like, "I know that you think that going to a local school is a safe option, and you've planned things out for so long, but if you ever have a little thing that you think could be cool, just go for it." And so, by my senior year, I definitely will make it a priority to just apply everywhere 'cause you never know what might encourage you to do something completely different and unexpected.
Doug: I love that, and I love the advice for other students to keep all their options open. You never know what's going to pique your interest. Marcella, how about you? What are you doing after graduation?
Marcella: What I'm looking for after graduation is going to college and spending like time with friends and more time with family.
Doug: I love that. And what schools are you looking at going to?
Marcella: UW, some other ones like out of state like Northern, but I'm not sure about out of state yet.
Doug: Awesome. And Kaydence, we already know your goal is to be a respiratory therapist, so we'll give you the final word today. What would you say to this year's crop of incoming freshmen as they're looking to find their foot in the door here at Bethel High?
Kaydence: I would say that my biggest advice for incoming freshmen is to really ask around and learn what type of clubs that Bethel does offer. And I think it's really important to try to go to at least one meeting and see what it's all about and try to dip your toes in the water and see exactly what type of like what type what type of water you like to be in.
Marcella: Yep.
Kaydence: Did I... That was crazy.
Conor: Fantastic metaphor. Words to live by.
Doug: And we'd be remiss if we didn't say thank you to our voters who came through for us on the levy back in February. As you all know, our Educational Programs and Operations levy funds after-school programs like HOSA, it funds our arts, it funds music, it funds sports. It does so much work around this district, and we are forever thankful to all the voters here in Bethel. And I'm also thankful to our students today, to Joon, Madelynn, Marcella, and Kaydence. Thank you all so much, and best of luck at the International Leadership Conference this summer.
Students: Thank you! Thank you so much! Thank you, thank you!
Conor: What a fun interview, and we have since learned that at Nationals, Maddie and Joon were ranked as the top Washington State competitors for Health Career Display. All four of them said they had a blast and can't wait to give it their all again this year.
Doug: And if you liked what you'received here today, be sure to share the show with a friend. You can find us wherever you listen to great podcasts, and that now includes 101.9 Radio Tacoma, where we're on Saturdays at 2:00 PM.
Conor: Thanks for listening, everyone. We will be back next week with another great show.

The Bethel School District is kicking off the 2026-27 School Year with a balanced budget and another clean state audit. But significant financial challenges lie ahead. Despite local voters passing essential education levies (thank you, voters!) recent state legislative rule changes to Local Effort Assistance leave our district facing an estimated $10 million deficit starting in the 2027–28 school year. To kick off Season 5 of our award-winning podcast, we break down how school funding works, where levy dollars go, and how community advocacy in Olympia can help protect local students. Find out who your legislators are here: https://app.leg.wa.gov/districtfinder
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This transcript was automatically generated by Gemini from the original audio file. While it aims for high accuracy, it may contain minor discrepancies from the original audio.
Conor: Hey, everybody! I'm Conor, that's Doug, and welcome back to the fifth season of the award-winning Bethel School District Presents Podcast, the greatest podcast in the history of all podcasts. And we hope you've had a fantastic summer. We hope you're ready to get rocking, 'cause we've got an excellent show to kick off this fifth season. We're going to be talking all about some exciting news about our budget, but before that, Douglas, it wouldn't be us if we didn't have a little useless trivia. So to kick off this season, give us your best shot.
Doug: Well, I will. Like Bonnie Tyler, I will hit you with my best shot. Fire away! Did you know—actually, let me phrase my useless trivia in the form of a question. First, how would you describe to me a Viking?
Conor: A Viking. I would look in the mirror, and I would say that guy.
Doug: So a tall drink of water, burly, very...
Conor: Ruggedly handsome, if I say so myself.
Doug: There you go. Well, did you know the average shoe size for a Viking was size 7?
Conor: So they were short kings.
Doug: Yes, they were. And this is from the Jorvik Viking Centre, which is in York, UK. They actually have some shoes that they excavated from a Viking settlement there, and the average shoe size was size 7. Crazy thing, they actually also wore socks. I never really thought about the sartorial choices of our Viking cousins, but they did have socks. They found one sock there, and the way they made it was called single needle knitting. And so they recreated one sock just to see how long it took. It took them 40 hours to make one sock. All right, what is your useless trivia to kick this season off, Conor?
Conor: Well, Douglas, did you know that crickets can tell you the temperature?
Doug: Really?
Conor: Yes, believe it or not, it's true. To get the temperature in Fahrenheit, count how many times a cricket chirps in 15 seconds, then add 37. This odd little party trick was formulated by an American physicist named Amos Dolbear and published in 1897 in the aptly titled scientific paper, The Cricket as a Thermometer. So apparently, the whole thing works because crickets are cold-blooded, meaning their body temperature fluctuates with the surrounding air. So when it warms up, their metabolism speeds up, causing the chemical reactions that trigger their muscles to happen faster. As a result, they chirp at a higher frequency. My source on that one is the old Farmer's Almanac.
Doug: That is really interesting. So it's how many times a cricket chirps in 15 seconds, and then you add 37?
Conor: The hard part, I guess, is singling out one specific cricket's chirping, 'cause there's usually more than one of them.
Doug: Growing up in Virginia, I had a cricket in my bedroom one night, and it chirped 10,000 times a second.
Conor: So it was hot that day.
Doug: Yeah, I didn't—I didn't sleep very much that night. I was always trying to get it out of the wall. Tell-tale cricket. I love that. Well, let's get on to the business of the day. We are talking all things budget. We're kicking off the new school year with a tale as old as time: school district budgets. And our school board actually got a preview of the budget at the end of June, and that gives the board and the community time to really dig into it, process before they're going to actually adopt it in August. That'll actually be next week, August 11th. And you can attend that meeting in person at the Educational Service Center or via Zoom. The link is on our website, bethelsd.org.
Conor: And this all comes on the heels of a bargaining agreement with our teachers union, which happened before school got out, and that's exciting news to have everyone back and happy and ready to teach.
Doug: Yeah, that was actually a huge moment, and just great work to everyone involved in the bargaining process. School board director John Manning said he actually couldn't remember a time that an agreement had been reached before school got out, and he's been on the board nearly two decades.
John Manning: I would just like to reiterate the thanks to the district's team and BEA. I think this is the first time since I've ever been on the board that we've had a contract in place before we start looking at a budget. So, thanks again to the team and BEA.
Brian Lowney: Thank you, Director Manning. That is really important context. We tried to dig back to see when—we wanted to know what record was broken this year in having a contract before the summer months, but nobody that's institutionally been here can remember when that has happened. So, we're thinking that's 30-plus years.
Conor: So that voice at the end was Superintendent Brian Lowney, of course, and he said that this budget comes on the heels of a hard budget season that had implications for K-12 education across the state, especially right here in Bethel.
Doug: And we're going to talk about those issues in just a little bit, but just as a reminder to everybody listening, all districts in the state get audited by the state. And by the way, Bethel just completed our audit, and it's another clean one. So, well done to our finance team.
Conor: So, as we get into talking about the budget, it's important to note that for school district budgets, like our own personal budgets, it's nice to have a little cushion there sometimes, and that's why it's really important for districts to have a savings account. Those are called the general fund. At the end of the '25-'26 school year, we expected our general fund, which is reserve money, and we thought it was going to be $32.5 million. It actually ended up about a half a million more than that.
Christine Donnelly: We anticipate the year to end at $33 million, which is about 8% of revenue and expenditures, and $33 million is actually about one month of expenditures for the district.
Doug: That was Chief Financial Officer Christine Donnelly, and I love how she put that because when we hear a number like $33 million, just to an individual, that is a ton of money.
Conor: Absolutely. That'd be a ton of money in my bank account. But 33 million to a district that has over 3,000 employees and supports 31 schools, it's like she said, about one month of expenditures. So here's Superintendent Lowney talking more about that.
Brian Lowney: That $33 million-ish fund balance super critical. And that's when you see districts around us who are struggling, that is a major financial health or financial distress indicator. So when the state runs out of money, what they do is sometimes they shift apportionment. They say, "Well, we'll give you your version of the money. We won't give it to you in June, we'll give it to you in the next fiscal year in July." For districts who don't have a savings account, they can't make payroll because they didn't get their money from the state 'cause the state needed to hold back on giving them their allowance. So, we think we're in a pretty healthy spot.
Doug: So that was the '25-'26 budget. Let's look ahead to the '26-'27 budget preview. Now, with most of our money coming from enrollment, that means the more students we have, the more money the district gets to support them. But for the past four years, our enrollment has been relatively flat. That's not a bad thing as there's districts around us that have seen declining enrollment, so we're in a better position than most. Here's Superintendent Lowney again.
Brian Lowney: Students are our priority. Students are also, from a business model, they're the revenue generator, right? So when we talk about enrollment, the business sense of that is that enrollment is the only thing that drives revenue to the district. And again, the kind of cash flow is important, but really when we're talking business, revenues, we want revenues to be at least as big as expenses.
Conor: So we're thinking that our district's going to continue to have about 19,800 full-time students, and due to that trend, we are budgeting for no growth next year as well. That is a conservative approach, yes. Here's Deputy Superintendent David Hammond talking about why it's good to be conservative during this budgeting process.
David Hammond: We could budget based on 30,000 kids if we wanted to. At the end of the year, we'd be in a lot of trouble. And when you see what we budget for and what our actual enrollment is, our trend over time, at the end of the year, we are pretty darn close. I think last year or this year, we were within 20 kids. That's 20,000 kids, and we're within—I mean, the margin of error is ridiculous. We're identifying trends early. We identified the kindergarten trend after COVID and watched it and didn't ignore it, and budgeted and staffed accordingly. So that's why you see it's just a very simple thing. But other districts didn't pay attention to those trends; they just went on past practice.
Conor: So let's get back to the levies for a second, and once again, we love to thank our voters for approving those levies. We all know those levies aren't just for the extras. Of course, they do fund things the state doesn't, like athletics, but they also fund a host of things the state isn't fully funding. That includes some really big items that may surprise some people.
Brian Lowney: $20 million going towards material supplies and operating costs, things like insurance and utilities and keeping the lights on and all the rest, and then $5 million going to special education, another portion's going to transportation. You get the picture.
Doug: Now, we know there's been rumblings about federal support, and we're not going to get into the politics or the weeds on that, but it's nice to know that federal support is less than 10% of our district's budget. Here's the superintendent again.
Brian Lowney: Which 10% is still a lot. I mean, no one's going to sneeze at $40 million, but it's less—it's under 10% of our operating revenue. So we have less grief than some of the folks around us because of the federal money being not quite as big a piece of our pie as it is for some other districts. About half of our federal money is for nutrition, child nutrition. Of the remaining half, it's split evenly between special education—there's some federal money that goes to supplement the state money in special education—and then another half of that remaining half, so a quarter of that money, is Title moneys that are supporting our most at-risk kiddo.
Conor: So the money coming in for the '26-'27 school year is $437 million, and the money going out is also $437 million, which means we are projecting a balanced budget.
Doug: So that's a lot of cash, $437 million. Where's it all go?
Conor: Glad you asked, young Douglas. About 80% of our budget is salaries, benefits, and payroll tax, and the rest is for things like material supplies and other purchased services.
Doug: Man, you spend that money pretty quick there.
Conor: That's how I roll.
Doug: Yeah, it's like my budget at home, too. Money comes in and leaves faster than I even see it. But like we said earlier, we support over 3,000 staff, we're one of the biggest employers in Pierce County, and we support 19,800 students and 31 schools to take care of. It is a lot of work, and it requires a lot of money.
Conor: Yeah, and a balanced budget seems like it should be an easy thing to do, but these are difficult times in K through 12 education in Washington State. So a lot of work went on, and continues to go on, behind the scenes to make that happen.
Doug: So, Conor, we have a balanced budget, we got another clean audit from the state. All is well in Bethel, right?
Conor: Well, let's hear from our board president, Marcus Young, to answer that question for us.
Marcus Young: I had a phone call a week ago. I won't say who it was because then you'll know what district it was as well. But the thing that they told me was that they have actually looked at our organizational structure, and they are trying to get their district to follow because they have a whole lot of stuff on top, and that has attributed to why they're in the financial strains that they're in.
Doug: So, yeah, with other districts wanting to be more like us, I'd say Bethel is doing pretty well right now.
Conor: I would agree, and I'm glad you said "right now," because there is something looming that's going to have a negative impact on us and a whole lot of other districts. That's the LEA cliff.
Doug: Now, LEA is Local Effort Assistance. You might remember it as we were talking about our levies earlier this year. Property-poor districts like Bethel get LEA money only if their communities pass levies.
Conor: And we passed ours, and we were counting on that money, but unfortunately, the state's changing its rules. Here's CFO Donnelly to explain it better.
Christine Donnelly: What that means for us is that we are anticipating less revenue in future years because of this to the tune of $10 million in '27-'28. So, looking ahead and anticipating or wanting to have a balanced budget, it's going to be tough knowing that we're going to be down $10 million for sure the following year, unless something in the legislative changes.
Doug: Well, Conor, frankly, that sucks.
Conor: It really does. There's just no sugarcoating that. And to make matters worse, it's not even impacting the rich districts. Here's Dr. Lowney.
Brian Lowney: Seattle can raise $1 billion through levies because they're property-rich. Even districts around us, district—a district like Fife can raise a ton of money, all the industrial and business there. So, the state has a mechanism to try to make some equity, and that's called Local Effort Assistance, saying, "Hey, you don't have a lot of property and value, and you—your voters are doing their part." For that, the state says, to make up that you're not Bellevue or Issaquah or whomever, "We are going to kick in money to make some equity for you." The legislature promised an amount of money in the last biennium and then withdrew that promise in this most recent legislative session.
Doug: So let's just restate it for the record. We are looking at losing tens of millions of dollars a year from the state starting in the '27-'28 school year unless something's done.
Conor: And just know that district leaders from across the state, like our own Dr. Lowney, will be speaking with legislators trying to change their mind on this. But it does help for them to hear from regular folks like you and us. That makes a big difference. So reach out to the people that represent you in Olympia and let them know that this isn't fair.
Doug: Absolutely. It shouldn't matter what zip code a kid lives in whether they get a good education or not, and LEA funding helps to level that playing field so our kids in Spanaway, Graham, and Frederickson get just as good of an education as the ones living up north.
Conor: Well, thank you for joining us on our first episode back. We're going to have another excellent season of podcast for you. Starting next week, we'll be speaking with four amazing Bethel High School students.
Doug: Yes, indeed. Four students interested in going into the healthcare field. It's going to be a great show, great conversation. We're going to be back with you next week. Thanks for listening.

In honor of the passing of Bethel Legend Ed Niehl, we wanted to reshare our interview with Ed and his son, Bob. At the time of the recording, Ed had just turned 100 and Bethel was celebrating our 75th anniversary as a school district.
--TRANSCRIPT--
This transcript was automatically generated by Gemini from the original audio file. While it aims for high accuracy, it may contain minor discrepancies from the original audio.
Doug: Hey, everybody, I’m Doug. That’s Conor and this is a very special episode of the Bethel School District Presents Podcast. We are celebrating 75 years of the Bethel School District with Bethel legend Ed Niehl. You might recognize Mr. Niehl’s name from the Bethel High School gymnasium, and we are so proud to have him join us on the show, along with his son, Bob Niehl. Gentlemen, thank you so much for being here.
Ed Niehl: Glad to have you.
Conor: So Mr. Niehl, you've lived in our area since 1951 and worked at Bethel High School when it opened its doors. Talk to us a little bit about the changes you've seen in the school and around the district since then.
Ed Niehl: I just had the opportunity the other day with Bob to travel out to Graham, which I haven't seen for many, many years, and up the Graham Hill, and I couldn't believe the growth in the Bethel District. When I was here started, we had six elementary schools. We had uh teams formed from the six schools for intramural and recreational basketball and baseball. And now I understand there's 18 elementary schools and maybe six or eight uh junior high schools. And I was fortunate to see the fourth high school groundbreaking since I've lived in the Bethel District, and that's amazing to see four high schools in a lifetime.
Doug: It absolutely is. Your lifetime spans a lot of history across this district, across this country. You came to Bethel by way of Pittsburgh, the United States Army, and Washington State University. It's a lot of ground to cover in your early years that I'm sure folks are going to want to know about. So let's start in the Steel City where I am also from Pittsburgh. I lived there till I was 12. You lived there a little bit less time than that. I heard you left when you were about 6 months old.
Ed Niehl: We left there when I was 6 months old. My dad and mother and Aunt Mary and my older brother Ted headed west. I don't remember much about the trip, but I do have some stories that I was often told later. The main one was Aunt Mary, who was coming out with us to help with my older brother Ted and me. She always got scared coming over high road passes and and different roads that we took, and Dad and Mom used to tell me how Mary always wanted the inside of the car to sit on when we came over some of those uh rugged passes in those days. I don't know if there was guardrails or not, but it kind of scared all of us when she started screaming about "Look down there! Way down there." Yeah.
Conor: And and Ed, I understand you're 100 years old, correct?
Ed Niehl: Yes.
Conor: So you've seen a lot in your life. Your your formative years stretched from the Great Depression to World War II. That's an unparalleled experience. How did that shape you as a young man, and what lessons did you learn that stayed with you all these years?
Ed Niehl: I think the big biggest thing that I learned after graduating—I quit high school in my senior year after the football season, and I joined the Army because I was afraid they would draft me into the Navy.
Ed Niehl: And I didn't like water at that time, and I'm still not a favor of water. Uh but I did join the Army, and uh I think the two and a half years that I was in did a lot for my life. It uh I was kind of a character in high school, I understand.
Ed Niehl: I didn't like school too well, but I liked sports. And the Army took that out of me and gave me a lot of of foresight to continue my life.
Doug: And I found an article about you online. It said you actually played football for the Army. Is that true?
Ed Niehl: I did. I I was going to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and uh we brought a artillery team from Camp Swift to Fort Sill to play football. And I think there was uh six or eight different teams that came there. Uh real remarkable uh place to go and I don't know what I learned militarily,
Ed Niehl: but I I did have a a good time playing football for the artillery at Fort Sill.
Doug: I bet. I was actually also in the Army. I was a broadcast journalist and served with AFN in Belgium. I don't know what I learned militarily either, but it brought me here.
Ed Niehl: Yeah, yeah.
Doug: So you also played football at WSU, if I'm not mistaken. Any memories from that time?
Ed Niehl: Yes, I remember when a guy knocked on a coach knocked on my door one day when I was living in Seattle and asked me if I wanted to go to school at Washington State. Kind of surprised me because I had no intentions of going to school. I was ready to go to work. Uh and I said yes, and Mom and Dad a few weeks later packed me in a car and took me over to Pullman and dumped me off.
Ed Niehl: And there from then on, it was uh Washington State Cougar football from from that day on. I never was a real Husky fan,
Ed Niehl: but I I do appreciate the program that they have had so far. I'm a Cougar, my two sons are Cougars, my grandson is a Cougar. So we we have respect for Washington, but not not as a Cougar.
Conor: But not too much.
Doug: Not too much respect.
Conor: Uh and sports, you were you were also very involved with sports at Bethel High School. But before we get into that, let's talk a little bit about your time as a teacher there. If my sources are correct, you taught shop. What was that like and what kind of projects did students work on back in the '50s?
Ed Niehl: I have to say that your sources were wrong.
Doug: Oh no!
Ed Niehl: I taught shop for one year. Uh when I got the job at Bethel, uh I was assigned to World History, shop, metal shop, wood shop. Uh I graduated from Washington State in Physical Education and health. So the first year I was at Kapowsin High School, which had a uh earthquake destruction in 1949, uh destroyed their swimming pool and part of their gymnasium. So I got these other different teaching positions than I would have normally. And when Bethel opened, I did get my position that I wanted was in the gymnasium, taught Physical Education for 15 15 and a half years.
Doug: That tracks with the coaching thing. I'm we'll have to fire the intern that did our research on that.
Doug: So I have a follow-up question. That date, 1949, when you taught at Kapowsin High School, that is the year that Bethel School District was founded, 75 years ago. Do you remember anything about that consolidation of the 30-some school districts that were brought together to form this one big gigantic megalith that we now Conor and I now proudly serve?
Ed Niehl: No, I I don't remember much about it. I do know that there was a lady, uh Pierce County uh educator, Ruth Bethel. And uh what I know is they named the name after her. But uh I do understand there were just many, many consolidations in the Bethel School District. Uh the last one being high school being Roy and Kapowsin, which were I don't know how far apart, but they're quite a ways apart.
Conor: Yeah, and and you were a football and baseball coach at Bethel. And as a new district with a new high school, it was your job to get the athletes from Kapowsin High School and Roy High School, like you just mentioned, to come together as one team, being so far away. I've read that you actually drove the bus that took the athletes from Kapowsin to Roy for practice. What was that time like for you?
Ed Niehl: Actually, the two schools, now I remember, were 16 miles apart. And when they consolidated, they played 1950 season was played as Roy and as Kapowsin. Then in 1951, uh we brought the two teams together. When I got the job, my wife and I came early, a spring break, to look at the two schools we were going to be involved in. And uh things didn't look good at that time,
Ed Niehl: but I knew they were building the new Bethel High School, so I was really excited about that. But our facilities at Roy uh is where we chose to turn out for football. Uh we rented a field in Bresemann Park, which is now Spanaway Golf Course, and that's where we turned out for baseball. But uh I had to take the kids from Kapowsin, load them on a bus, take them over to Roy and turn out. And then after turn out, I would take some of the Roy kids home, and then backtrack over to Kapowsin and take the Kapowsin kids home. And fortunately, the school district let me take the bus home when I lived in Parkland. But it was it was it was a long day, but it was a fun day.
Doug: Is it true you played games at Cheney Stadium in Tacoma?
Ed Niehl: Yes, we played our football games at Cheney Stadium, which was up on 11th Avenue there somewhere. Yes, we played there a couple years until we got our Bethel uh facilities going.
Bob Niehl: Dad, why don't you tell them the story about you and Art Crate, how the football field got in its location?
Ed Niehl: You'd have to know Art Crate first.
Ed Niehl: Art Crate was a member of the Bethel District. He was a power and light manager for Elmhurst Light and Power. The district went from Parkland way out to Harts Lake. And Art became very concerned about our high school and our athletic program, because he had two boys coming up. Knowing Art Crate, he used to come and ask me what I needed. Well, we needed a lot of things, and field was the main things. And I can remember one day he came when I was out with my uh high school uh PE class, and Art came over and he said, "Where do you want the football field?" And I said, "Art, I I've got a a class here. I can't leave you. I can't leave them." Well, knowing Art, it was then or now or not at all.
Ed Niehl: So I I told the my student leader to take over while I went over and helped Mr. Crate out. And I had looked at the areas where a field might be, but I had no idea it would be. But we walked over there, I was kind of upset. And I walked over there and and uh I put my foot down and I says, "Art, I want the corner right here." And I said, "I want I'd like to have it parallel with 38th Avenue." And uh that was it. He
Ed Niehl: he pounded a stake!
Ed Niehl: And that's where the Bethel football field is nowadays, at the same place.
Conor: Well, that that is amazing though, that a kind of snap decision like that so many decades later and here we are, still playing there.
Ed Niehl: Still playing.
Bob Niehl: And to look at the timeline of how long it went from, "Okay, where are we going to put it?" to it being there, was amazing. How how quickly did the machinery show up after that meeting that you had with Art?
Ed Niehl: Probably the next weekend.
Ed Niehl: Because Art Art was a he was a go-getter, and he had lots of help in the Bethel District. He got the centers and the whole thing put the ribbon around for the track and and put up goalposts. He did he did a lot. I can't say enough for Art Crate. I appreciate everything he did.
Conor: Things move a little slower these days.
Doug: Things do move a little slower these days.
Bob Niehl: We we just attended the groundbreaking for the new Bethel High School, and they talked how that started 17 years ago.
Doug: It did.
Bob Niehl: A little bit different than what they were able to do the football field and the grandstand, both.
Doug: They should have just had Ed come over and put a stake down and we would have been good to go.
Bob Niehl: Get Get Art and Ed out there with a stake and put the school in.
Conor: Yeah, something tells me the permitting process wasn't as rigorous back then.
Ed Niehl: It was, yeah.
Doug: So at Bethel High, Ed, you spent 15 years as a football coach, 5 years as a baseball coach, and 7 years as a basketball assistant. When it came to athletics, what did Bethel do right, and what were some of the things that you had to work on?
Ed Niehl: I think we worked on things as they came. There were problems that came up daily turnout wise, fields, transportation, getting the kids home and and back. We had to work on everything as it came along. There's no no planning ahead. We had no money. I did go to Washington Hardware in Tacoma and Scott's Athletic Supply, and uh ran up a credit bill there.
Ed Niehl: They gave us uniforms. At first, we had uniforms from both Kapowsin and Roy, uh not enough for a full team at a consolidated school. So we did have to go in debt a little bit, and we borrowed and begged from different people that we knew that that had something. And the district, Bethel District was super. They were like the old time and days when somebody needed help, there was people there to help them. Uh so it was a great district, and just went from grassroots up to where they are now.
Conor: I I've heard that once once you're a coach, you're always a coach. Let's put that coaching hat back on for a minute. If you could step into the locker room and give a pep talk, what would you say to today's student-athletes?
Ed Niehl: I don't know what I would say today. I I hear too much restriction of what
Ed Niehl: what a coach can do and can't do.
Ed Niehl: But I would impress on the kids that were playing this game as a team. And as a team, we we don't want anyone to embarrass our team or yourself. Uh we want don't want to embarrass the Bethel School District, so adhere to the laws and the rules of the game, carry out your assignments, and do the best you can, and above all, have some fun doing it.
Doug: I love that. Conor gave me that same pep talk before we came in here. "Don't embarrass me and don't embarrass the district."
Conor: I say that before every interview.
Doug: It's very wise advice. Uh Ed, today you serve as a key member of the Bethel School District Athletic Hall of Fame. Tell us a little bit about that organization and why it's so important for our community.
Ed Niehl: It gives us a chance in the Bethel School District to bring kids back together as a group receiving awards. I think Bob could answer this better than I do. Bob is the president of the Bethel Hall of Fame, and he does a good job of better than I. I know that it's been just a great thing because a lot of my former athletes have come by and congratulated us on the job that the this group has done.
Bob Niehl: I think one of our main goals is to preserve history. Uh to learn from what past athletes have done, to learn who those people were, just the abilities of people that have come out of Bethel High School. All of us have kind of a timeframe that we know the school, and my timeframe was probably from birth until I graduated from high school. You know, and the day after I graduated from high school, I was a Cougar. But I look back now on the and get to see people that I sat in the stands and saw as heroes be recognized for what they had done. Back in those days, the high school games were so important because you did couldn't see every pro team play every night on TV like you can today. So that was a lot more of the community focus. And the thing that I have learned about 1970 on is we have produced a huge number of great athletes, people that have been on the pro golf tour, uh people that have have played some pro football, people that have been have done all sorts of things and gone on and be successful.
Doug: Absolutely. We even had a former Mariner come out of Bethel High School.
Bob Niehl: Yes, we did. Mike Blowers, and he was uh I think it was the first ceremony we had. He was our guest speaker. Or or was he maybe he was inducted the first one and spoke at the second one, I think is what he probably did.
Ed Niehl: That was it, yeah.
Bob Niehl: Dad, why don't you tell us a little bit about your 1955 and '56 football teams?
Ed Niehl: The 1955 team, I wish I could list some of the players, but I would miss some so I better not. But it was went undefeated and we won the state championship. This was a mythical championship at that time, was voted in by sports writers and people throughout the state. And then in '56, most of the same kids came back and we went undefeated that year. And if I recall right, we we were unscored on for 16 ball games.
Conor: Which is truly incredible. I I would love to get back in the record books and see if that's ever happened again. That I I can't imagine it has.
Doug: Quite a defense.
Ed Niehl: Yeah.
Doug: Ed, you were born in 1924. I'm going to go through a little list I made here of some of the things that were invented after you were born, and that includes bubblegum, penicillin, Scotch tape, jet engines, so many different things that Conor and I take for granted were invented after you entered the world. For you, is there a single greatest invention that America's produced?
Ed Niehl: I think probably the television. I know I at at my age now, I enjoy television as it's a good pastime and I do enjoy it. I know that uh when I was going to high school, there was no Sea-Tac Airport.
Doug: Wow.
Ed Niehl: There was no Interstate 5. There was no Spanaway Golf Course. Pacific Avenue was very bare of businesses like it is today. Mainly construction has taken over, I think, which is good.
Doug: A lot of new infrastructure around. That's that's a good answer, I think television is a strong answer. Conor and I have chosen podcasting because we have faces for radio, we're told.
Doug & Conor: [laughter]
Doug: So we're happy to sit behind the microphones here. Bob, with your father turning 100, I'm sure over the years he's probably told you a couple solid pieces of advice. Is there any that you could share with the listeners that really stuck with you, made a big impact in your life? You've been a pretty successful man yourself.
Bob Niehl: Well, I don't know if they were direct things that he said, "Here's the advice," but to follow his lead. He spent his life in coaching, and so many times I've seen articles about him and it has the quote, "Do it for the kids." And he was his whole career, he was about the betterment of student-athletes, both in the classroom and on the the football field or basketball court or baseball field. But it was always about what's best for the students and and what's good for their life. And what can they learn and take with them as they go on. And and I followed his footsteps, as I say, physical education degree at at uh WSU. Played basketball, I was never a football player, but I did play basketball and and sports were really important in our household as just kind of a centerpiece. We still watch the Mariners almost every night, we watch all the Seahawk games, we just love watching the Cougars this last year in basketball. And I think just the guidance that he gave me towards how he lived his life. I look back and and so many times now you see parents that are the helicopter parents that are always there and right involved with the kids and everything they do. He never once said, "Let's go out and do this. Let's go do that, play a sport," but if I said, "Hey Dad, I'd like to go play catch," he had the ball and a couple gloves. "Hey, will you rebound for me?" "Yep," he was out there.
Doug: Love that.
Bob Niehl: And and was always there but never pushed. But I I think like any young person, you're going to look at what the important people in your life are doing, and you emulate that. And I I think that I did that and I'm glad that I did.
Doug: I think that's fantastic. Great great answer, and great advice: do it for the kids. I love that quote.
Conor: Absolutely. And and one last question for you, Ed, and we all aspire to live a long meaningful life like yours. Do you have any good advice for the people listening on how to stay active and engaged in their retirement years?
Ed Niehl: I've been asked that many times
Ed Niehl: since I got a 100 anyway. I never had any problems as far as eating, sleeping, keeping active. And that's all I can say is that keep going, just keep active, eat the right things, stay away from drugs,
Ed Niehl: and do the best you can with what you got.
Conor: It's just that simple.
Doug: Just love it. Fan- fantastic advice. Bethel institution Ed Niehl and Bob Niehl, thank you so much for joining us today. We're really excited to have you here to celebrate the 75th anniversary of our great district. Gentlemen, thank you very much.
Ed Niehl: Thank you.
Bob Niehl: Thank you. Enjoyed it.

On this week's podcast we sit down with three members of the Class of 2026 to hear all about their future plans, what unique sports they play, and what they loved most about their school communities. This is the last episode of Season 4. Season 5 will return in August. Have a great summer! 
 
--TRANSCRIPT--
This transcript was automatically generated by Gemini from the original audio file. While it aims for high accuracy, it may contain minor discrepancies from the original audio.
Doug: Hey, everybody, I'm Doug.
Conor: That's Conor, and you're listening to the final episode this season of the Bethel School District Presents podcast.
Doug: Wipe the tears from your eyes, open up your ears, and get ready for a whole bunch of useless trivia and more seniors on the show. Graduation for all of our schools is actually over. We had three ceremonies last week, three earlier this week. You have got to be exhausted. You are a photographer extraordinaire out there at the graduation ceremonies.
Conor: I am, indeed, and I love those ceremonies. And one thing I've gotten to know really well over these many, many years of covering graduation is "Pomp and Circumstance," the song they play as graduates walk out every time. And it got me thinking, Doug, why? Why that song?
Doug: I don't know.
Conor: And, and you know, the inquisitive brain that I have, it got me down a rabbit hole, and that's going to be my useless trivia this week. So, Douglas, did you know the tradition didn't actually start at a high school graduation at all, but rather a college one? The song was originally written in 1901 by Sir Edward Elgar, who composed the piece for the coronation of King Edward VII of England. Then, in 1905, Elgar visited Yale University to receive an honorary degree, and Yale, being the good sports that they are, played the tune as a show of respect. Other schools heard it, loved the stately vibe, and it quickly spread to high schools across the country. So, that's how it started. My source on that is the Yale Alumni Magazine, which I subscribe to even though I didn't go to Yale, just because I want to feel cool.
Doug: Well, it's working for you. I love that. More importantly, "Pomp and Circumstance," the entrance music for one Macho Man Randy Savage. Source: my childhood in the '80s. Oh, yeah, brother. Well, it's funny, you had a little bit of England in your useless trivia. I have some in mine, too, but first, listeners—Conor—have a little science experiment for us to do. If you have an iPhone, and I apologize Android users, go ahead and put your phone down, but if you have an iPhone, go to your calculator, and in the upper right-hand corner, there's a smaller calculator. I've never even noticed this before. Little calculator icon. Click that, and click the word "Convert" at the bottom. And now you have a currency calculator. Have you ever seen that before?
Conor: I have not.
Doug: Yeah, mine opened in Euros, but you can go in and select everything from the Guatemalan quetzal to the Iraqi dinar and everything in between on the list of A to Z. And that got me thinking about the world's oldest currency, which is the British pound—£1 sterling, as it's officially called. It dates back over 1,200 years, believe it or not, Conor, back to 775. I'm going to give you a real brief timeline, and don't worry, I'm going to skip like 1,000 years here in a second.
But in 775, silver pennies were introduced, and 240 of them weighed exactly one physical pound of sterling silver. Skip 1,000 years, in 1717, your boy Sir Isaac Newton, who was the Master of the Royal Mint, accidentally changed Britain from a silver to a gold standard. It must have been some accident because it lasted until 1931 when Britain abandoned gold and converted the pound to a modern currency. And the last notch on the timeline is 1971 when Britain throws out the ancient system of shillings and pence, decimalizing the pound so it equals exactly 100 pence.
Conor: Wow.
Doug: And my— it was a lot. And my sources on that are the Royal Mint and the BBC.
Conor: Excellent trivia, Doug. I love that.
Doug: And speaking of pounds, you sure were pounding the pavement over at our high schools. That was terrible. I'm glad this is the last episode. I am going to take a sabbatical with my embarrassment for the summer and, uh, hopefully come back with some better jokes in the fall. But you were over at Bethel High School, and the first senior you talked to this week is Riley.
Conor: Well, let's jump right in. Riley, what's been your favorite class here at Bethel High?
Riley: I've really enjoyed our international history class with Mr. Matthews. We cover a lot of topics like around like the Cold War era, and I've gotten to like explore like a lot of like new like perspectives and things that I never thought I'd be able to see, which is really great. And we have a lot of opportunities through the Cambridge program to get a more like global view.
Conor: That sounds super interesting. Uh, any special activities or awards during your time here at Bethel?
Riley: Um, so I do play roller derby outside of school, so I've gotten um a couple MVPs from that. Uh, I am in our marching band and concert and jazz band, so um I did receive a drum major award, and we placed second in the Wenatchee parade. Um, I also received the outstanding uh Cambridge Learner Award because I got uh high marks on all of my exams. Um, and then I'm also our ASB vice president, so like I've gotten to help a lot with the community around here, and I got an award for our SSLC Superintendent Student Leadership Council as well.
Conor: That's a diverse set of interests. I like that. Uh, what are your plans after graduation?
Riley: I'm planning to study neuroscience at Wazzu, and I hope to find a career in psychiatry and maybe work for a Seattle sports team.
Conor: What have you enjoyed most about your time here at Bethel?
Riley: I really like the community. Um, I like doing a lot of things that are performance arts-based and kind of pushing like my limits. Um, so in like drama club and band, I've been able to be in that center spotlight where I used to be like really scared, but that's like helped me grow as a person, and I feel like I can take on a lot more challenges now than I used to be able to. And I'm like, because of Cambridge, I feel like really like prepared to go into college and like accomplish new things.
Conor: Yeah, that's great. Uh, what makes this school so special to you?
Riley: I'd say like the teachers. Our teachers here, they care so much about their student body, and like I feel like they have been really important for my growth as like a learner and as a student. And I'm really grateful for the experiences I've been able to have and for their effect on me long-term.
Conor: Yeah, shout out to all the amazing teachers here. All right, here's the hard part, the lightning round. What's your least favorite food?
Riley: I'm not a huge fan of seafood. I kind of like shrimp, but I had this really gross um Krabby Patty with imitation crab, and I threw up after that. Not a fan.
Conor: That'll ruin it for you. Uh, any pets?
Riley: I have two cats. Um, one is named Willow and one named Scout. It's uh, they have a calico and a gray tabby.
Conor: Very cool. Any books you're reading right now or books you'd like to recommend to people?
Riley: So we actually covered a lot of really cool like uh literary works in my literature class, and I actually really like Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee. Um, and then I actually enjoyed Pride and Prejudice a lot. I actually played Mr. Darcy in our play here. And if anybody's interested in that kind of work, uh I really like Jane Austen, as well as Sylvia Plath as well, the poet.
Conor: Classics, all of them. What is your dream spring break travel destination?
Riley: I really want to go to Japan, um and like just experience something that's like new and a lot different. Um, I also really want to go like to Europe and be able to travel between like the different countries over there.
Conor: What TV show, YouTube show, podcast series are you listening to or watching right now?
Riley: I have been watching a lot of House, and um I really like all the Gordon Ramsay shows. So like Kitchen Nightmares and Hell's Kitchen and everything. So when I'm stressed out, I get to watch other people being stressed out about things and it makes me feel better. Um
Conor: Comfort shows there. Uh, what's one thing on your bucket list?
Riley: I really want to go bungee jumping or do something, I really like thrill like adventures and stuff. So if I could like travel to like a coast or anything or like go scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef, that would be really awesome.
Conor: That would be cool. Uh, okay, if you had to sing karaoke in front of the entire school, what song you picking?
Riley: I would pick "Hella Good" by No Doubt.
Conor: Excellent choice, and thank you very much. Good luck in the future.
Riley: Thank you.
Doug: Well, great interview, Conor. First time I've heard a student say that they played roller derby. That was really, really cool to learn about Riley. And did you know—bonus piece of useless trivia for you, Conor—that before one plays an official roller derby game, you have to pass a written exam?
Conor: That can't be true.
Doug: It is true. According to the Women's Flat Track Derby Association, they have a rulebook that covers everything from legal blocking zones to complex penalty scenarios, and all participants must study the rulebook and pass a test on the regulations to ensure safety on the track before they can play.
Conor: Wow, that's really interesting, Doug. Um, also interesting, I got to talk to a few other seniors. Next one was from Challenger.
Conor: I am here at Challenger High School with senior extraordinaire, Kevaughn. So Kevaughn, what is your favorite class here at Challenger, either this year or any year?
Kevaughn: Uh, my favorite class is art class with Mr. Foote.
Conor: Any special activities or awards you've earned during your time here at Challenger?
Kevaughn: I've earned uh Honor Roll and uh Student of the Month award.
Conor: Very good. Uh, and what are you planning on doing after you graduate?
Kevaughn: I plan on doing uh professional rugby overseas. So, yeah, that's about it.
Conor: Oh, you're going to have to tell me more about that. I'm not letting you off the hook that easy. Tell me about the professional rugby you're going to pursue. How long you been playing rugby?
Kevaughn: Man, I've been playing rugby my whole life, and I'm just, that's always been my career ever since I was a kid. So I'm just, that's like my passion right there.
Conor: That's an amazing passion. Uh, what have you enjoyed most about being a student here at Challenger?
Kevaughn: I'd say it's, you know, getting to meet uh new faces around the school like every year, and like from time to time, especially the staff. Like, the staff's been a huge like amount of support for me, especially the teachers, and I'd say that's like my favorite thing.
Conor: Absolutely. And, and this is a unique school, it's not like every other school. What do you think makes Challenger so special?
Kevaughn: I'd say the staff and teachers, they're very more like um social and like more active like to getting to know you and like having you be like, you know, active in school activities and stuff like that. So I'd say that's one, that's one of the main things that separates it from like different schools.
Conor: All right, so this is the fun part, we're going to do a little lightning round here. What's your least favorite food?
Kevaughn: I'd say fish.
Conor: Just cross the board, fish.
Kevaughn: Fish.
Conor: Fair enough. Uh, do you have any pets?
Kevaughn: Uh, nah.
Conor: No pets. Uh, you got a book you're reading, or the last good book you want to recommend?
Kevaughn: It was about the All Blacks, I'm pretty confidential. Uh, professional rugby team, but it was like about motivation and stuff like that.
Conor: What is your dream spring break travel destination?
Kevaughn: I'd say it's uh Japan.
Conor: Any TV shows, YouTube shows, podcast series you're watching or listening to right now?
Kevaughn: Uh, right now I'm currently watching Black Clover, it's an anime, and uh I usually be listening to like uh sports podcast uh podcast about the Northampton Saints and the Premiership Cup in England.
Conor: Very specific, I like that. Uh, what's one thing on your bucket list?
Kevaughn: Skydiving.
Conor: Okay, here, here's the tough one. If you had to sing karaoke in front of the entire school, what song you picking?
Kevaughn: Oh, I'll probably pick "Thankful" by Stone Too.
Conor: All right, I like it. Uh, well, good luck in the future, and thanks for joining us.
Kevaughn: Thank you.
Doug: Always great to hear from our seniors. I love that his dream is to play professional rugby. Two sports, that and roller derby earlier, that we don't really talk about much on the podcast. Another piece of useless trivia for you, Conor, I've been sitting here while you were actually doing work over at the high schools. But did you know that originally, rugby balls were made from pigs' bladders?
Conor: Oh, that's disgusting.
Doug: It's horrible. Of course, they're naturally plum-shaped.
Conor: Of course.
Doug: And because they are organic, they varied widely in size and shape. And in the late 19th century, Richard Lindon switched to using rubber inner tubes, but the distinct oval shape was intentionally kept because it made the ball easier to hold, cradle, and pass. And that is all from the World Rugby Museum.
Conor: Very fascinating stuff. I did not know that about the pig bladders, and frankly, I wish I still didn't know it. Anyway, our last interview today is over at GK. I headed over and chatted with one of their superstar seniors.
Conor: I'm at Graham-Kapowsin High School with Danielle, an amazing senior here. And Danielle, what has been your favorite class here at GK?
Danielle: Definitely our Renaissance class. It's my favorite. Had all four years.
Conor: Very cool. Uh, any special activities you've been involved in or awards you've won?
Danielle: I've actually hosted our school haunted house this year called Fright Night, and we basically just transformed our whole school.
Conor: That sounds super fun and scary. Uh, what are your plans after graduation?
Danielle: I plan to attend Seattle Pacific University and get my nursing degree.
Conor: What have you enjoyed most about your time here at GK?
Danielle: I really love building a community and just being able to hang out with all my friends and make these unique clubs and meet all these new people.
Conor: Very cool. And what makes this school so special to you?
Danielle: Definitely the community we have. I feel like we're very tight-knit within our school, and we're very diverse, so there's so many different kinds of people and I feel like we all mesh together even with our differences.
Conor: All right, let's move on to lightning round here. What's your least favorite food?
Danielle: Watermelon.
Conor: All right, we'll accept it. Uh, do you have any pets?
Danielle: Um, we have a class fish, our goldfish, Mango.
Conor: Very cool. What books are you reading right now or anything you'd like to recommend to people?
Danielle: I'm reading a light novel called The Apothecary Diaries. It's part of a set, and I 100% recommend that.
Conor: What's your dream spring break travel destination?
Danielle: Japan. Most mostly like the country in Japan. I really want to visit out there and explore.
Conor: What TV show, YouTube series, podcast series are you listening to or watching right now?
Danielle: I'm currently watching When Life Gives You Tangerines. I really love that show.
Conor: What's one thing on your bucket list?
Danielle: It's kind of weird, but I have a life goal of trying to be able to do a backflip.
Conor: If you had to sing karaoke in front of the entire school, what song you choosing?
Danielle: I would sing "Sosefina" by JOSH TATOFFI.
Conor: Well, congratulations on an awesome career here, and good luck in the future.
Danielle: Thank you.
Doug: Well, thank you again to all the seniors we chatted with today, and congratulations and best wishes to all of our seniors that graduated this year. Over 1,000 graduates now heading off either into the workforce, off to college, into trade schools, the military. The future is bright, Conor, you got to find some shades. Summer's here, and the pod is over. Season 5 will return this fall, and while you're at the beach this summer, great beach listen catching up on all the podcasts you missed during the school year.
Conor: Have a great summer, everyone. We'll be back in August.

On this week's podcast, we explore what makes our schools special through the eyes of our graduating seniors! We’ll hear how Spanaway Lake High School thrives on diversity, offering a vibrant ethnic club scene where every student finds a place to belong. We’ll also talk with a multi-talented Student School Board Representative who thrived in Challenger High School’s close-knit, encouraging environment. Plus we’ve got useless trivia about summer barbecues and even a lawsuit involving a former president. New episodes drop on Wednesdays. Check us out wherever you listen to podcasts and be sure to like, comment, subscribe, and share with a friend!
--TRANSCRIPT--
This transcript was automatically generated by Gemini from the original audio file. While it aims for high accuracy, it may contain minor discrepancies from the original audio.
Doug: Hey everybody, I'm Doug, that's Conor, and you're listening to the Bethel School District presents podcast. You're also listening to the penultimate episode of this season. And today we're talking with two of our amazing seniors who are crossing the graduation stage, one of them, as we speak, as this episode drops. We'll get to them in just a minute, but first, of course, you know how we do it, Conor, useless trivia. What do you got for us this week?
Conor: Well, considering we are officially getting into summertime, and the weather's getting amazing, my favorite thing to do out there is barbecue. So, it got me thinking a little bit about useless barbecue trivia. And did you know, Douglas, that you can thank the pioneer of the assembly line for those uniform charcoal briquettes that you buy at the store? So, the story is, in 1920s, Henry Ford's car manufacturing plants were generating tons of leftover wood and scraps and sawdust. He didn't want that to go to waste, and he wanted to make a little money on it, so he teamed up with a man named E. G. Kingsford to turn that waste into charcoal lumps. So, Ford originally sold the charcoal through his car dealerships. Eventually, the company was sold and renamed Kingsford Charcoal, which is still the biggest charcoal brand in the US today.
Doug: Well, that is a fantastic piece of summertime trivia, Conor, I love that. I know you're a big barbecue guy in the backyard. My favorite kind of charcoal is propane. Now, what is your source this week, sir?
Conor: Well, I went straight to the horse's mouth on that one. I got it from kingsford.com. Douglas, regale us with your useless trivia this week.
Doug: Yeah, one of my favorite things to do on this podcast is to bore the pants off of you with random historical oddities that I happen across. And I happened to be in the city of Davenport, Iowa recently, looking across the water at what they call the Government Bridge. It's been there since 1896 and is still standing. It has room for two trains to go across the top and a place on the bottom for people to drive across to the Rock Island Arsenal. But this is not my useless trivia, Conor, we're going back multiple, and you can see I have pictures here from the museum where I saw this. So, that's the fourth bridge. The third bridge was also made out of metal but only had one railroad across it. The second bridge was made out of wood, a tornado hit that one. So, let's go back to the first bridge, and this is where my useless trivia is. From 1856 to 1866, 10-year span, the first bridge was put up to get folks over to Rock Island Arsenal, and within two weeks, a steamboat hit it and messed the whole thing up. There was a huge lawsuit. My useless trivia is, one of the lawyers in that lawsuit was Abraham Lincoln.
Conor: No kidding, Honest Abe, that's something. Well, the real question is, what was so special that they needed a train to go over to Rock Armor Island?
Doug: Rock Island Arsenal, you're really close. So, currently, Rock Island Arsenal's the only place in the United States where the Army owns and operates its own active foundry. And that goes back to even World War I where they made tanks, they made howitzers. They're still making howitzers. In fact, it's the main manufacturing place for that in the continental United States. And they're also making gun mounts for M1 Abrams tanks and other armored vehicles. But the history of the Army on this island goes way back, and I'm not going to get into all the details about that, but it was used as a prisoner of war camp. I think I'll save that to bore you with on another day, Conor.
Conor: Yeah, if those walls could talk, though. A lot of history over there. Rock Armory Islandville, whatever.
Doug: So close. Well, Conor, speaking of history, you stopped by Spanaway Lake High School where students are making history. We have some outstanding seniors there getting ready to cross the graduation stage next week, and you got to talk to a senior named Otshumba.
Conor: Let's get started. What is your favorite class or what has been your favorite class here?
Otshumba: My top favorite class has to be AP US History. That class was so fun. I know it's an AP class and sometimes AP class can like be dreading, but that class was really fun. I learned like a lot of content and like knowledge that like I use till this day. So, that class was like really fun.
Conor: That sounds awesome. That sounds like a fun class. Um, any special activities or awards you've won as a student here?
Otshumba: I have to say one of my top special activities has to be the club I made, my freshman year when I first came to Spanaway Lake High School. I made the club called ASA, African Student Association. And it's just a club that holds very dear in my heart. I feel like we've made a lot of like progress, especially for like a new club. It made a lot of progress and I feel like it opened to like a lot of new things that like we didn't do before I made ASA. We volunteer, um, to middle schools, elementary schools, and I think that also like touched my heart as well. It's just seeing like kids like engage in African, um, cultures. I am a Running Start student and I have been like on the dean's list at least three times and even more. So, I think that's very special to me, especially like for a college that's like not connected to Spanaway Lake High School, so I feel like that's an achievement that I'm really proud of as well.
Conor: Absolutely, those are both amazing achievements. Uh, leaving your mark here, I love that. Uh, what have you enjoyed most about your time here at Spanaway Lake High School?
Otshumba: Um, this might seem a little cheesy or a little bit scripted, but I really did, um, I enjoy my like the my knowledge I'm able to get. I feel like, um, going to school is such a privilege, and I think I really like the knowledge, as I said. I took AP US History and other AP classes that really set me up for success in my Running Start classes that like really opened my eyes to a lot of real-world and current news and stuff, so...
Conor: Very cool. Uh, and what makes this school special?
Otshumba: I don't mean to be biased since I'm a club leader myself, but really just the clubs. I don't know if I've seen any other high school have so many different ethnic clubs. I really, um, think Spanaway Lake High School is really special because of those. You have a representation for each different race and ethnicity, and I feel like if you're a freshman coming into high school, I think that's the main things you could look for is a club that represents you so you don't feel alone.
Conor: Very cool. All right, now, now we're getting to the tough ones. Here's a lightning round here. So, what's your least favorite food?
Otshumba: Probably tomato soup.
Conor: All right. Do you have any pets?
Otshumba: I have one, or actually, I have two. I have one leopard gecko, his name is Cornelius, and I have a dog named Magic.
Conor: Love that. Are you reading any books right now or anything you can recommend?
Otshumba: No, I'm usually an online reader, sorry.
Conor: What's your dream spring break travel destination?
Otshumba: I really want to go to France. On my dad's side, they speak French. Also, shout out to Miss Toulson, my French teacher. She's a really good teacher, so everyone needs to take French. And I really want to go to France. I think they have so many like different African infusion foods and stuff. I already went to New York, which was also my, um, one of my top places I want to go, and now it's just France.
Conor: Nice, you're knocking them off the bucket list already even as a youngster. So, okay. Any TV show, YouTube series, podcast series you're watching or listening to right now?
Otshumba: I'm really enjoying Smiling Friends. That TV show is so cool. I think it's only because it has like a lot of awkward scenes.
Conor: Besides getting over to France, anything on your bucket list you want to do?
Otshumba: Okay, this also might sound a little cheesy as well, but I feel like it's so important to live in now, like in like in your moment, because I feel like when I was a freshman, the biggest mistake I made was not being a kid or not or not just being a teen, because I immediately went into AP World History as my freshman year. I immediately did so many things that I actually didn't really have to, I mean, it helped me now, but I kind of wish that I just been a kid and just did a lot of kid stuff. So, I feel like now that like I'm going to graduate soon, I want to do like a lot of kid stuff, I want to go to concerts, I want to go to that coffee shop alone, I want to go experience so many different things that maybe I have to do alone or maybe with friends.
Conor: Okay, here's the last one. If you had to sing karaoke in front of the entire school, what song are you picking?
Otshumba: I think I'm going to have to choose "When Can I See You Again?" by Owl City. I've been singing that every single day. Like, I've been obsessed with that song. So, yeah, I'll probably sing that.
Conor: Love that. Well, Otshumba, thank you so much and good luck in the future.
Otshumba: Thank you.
Doug: Great interview, Conor. I love hearing from our seniors and what the future holds for them. She mentioned going to France, and it made me think of a time that I was actually in France, and I was there at an odd time when a lot of the bakeries were actually closed. And as a extra piece of useless trivia, did you know until 2015 there was a centuries-old law stating that all bakers in Paris had to report to the authorities when they wanted to go on vacation?
Conor: I didn't know that. Why is that? Makes no sense.
Doug: Well, the city needs fresh bread, Conor. I need fresh bread. I can't have all my bakers out of town at the same time. So, the bakers were split into two groups, half could vacation in July, the other half could go in August. It sounds like it's made up, but it's not. It actually goes all the way back to the French Revolution.
Conor: That's bizarre, and now I really want a baguette.
Doug: I don't blame you. Let me stop distracting you from the show so we can get to the end and we'll go find that baguette and maybe a cup of coffee too. Our next senior that we're going to meet is no stranger to the podcast. See if you recognize this familiar voice from Challenger High School. In fact, they are crossing the graduation stage today. Let's hear from him.
Conor: I am here at Challenger High School with senior extraordinaire, Jacques. If that name sounds familiar to our good listeners, it's because he was actually a guest on the show earlier this year, so two times in one season. Not bad, Jacques. Uh, I'm going to start out with what's your favorite class?
Jacques: Uh, my favorite class right now I'd have to say is PE with Mr. Jackson.
Conor: All right. Shout out Mr. Jackson. And here's a any special activities or awards you've earned, and since I sort of know your background, just take a deep breath, try to get them all out at once, because it's going to be about five minutes, I think. Jacques's got a pretty hefty resume, but I'm going to let you tell them.
Jacques: Yeah, um, I've gotten an honor's roll or principal's list every year since freshman year, attendance award every quarter. I'm also part of the school board representatives in SSLC. Um, also part of the multi-culture club at my school, Student Voice, um, team at my school, and Skill Center for pre-physical therapy. And that's all I can think of right now.
Conor: Probably got like five more, but when you're doing that much, it's easy to forget some of them. All right, what are your plans after graduation?
Jacques: Uh, my plans after high school, I want to go to college, um, or barber school. I recently got the opportunity to speak to some people from a barber school and it sounds like a really good opportunity for me.
Conor: Nice. Uh, what have you enjoyed most about being a student here at Challenger?
Jacques: Um, I've enjoyed like the freedom we have. I think it's very like relaxed, and it's not too strict um to the point where you don't want to be here. I think I always want to be here.
Conor: And you you touched on it right there, but what makes this school so special?
Jacques: I think just the environment. Um, seeing everybody like in hallways laughing, having a good time. The teachers always friendly, and it's just a good community all around.
Conor: Agreed, and we're going to jump right into the lightning round here. What's your least favorite food?
Jacques: Least favorite food, it had to be Brussels sprouts. Anything green, can't do it.
Conor: Oh, you're missing out. Someone's someday is going to prepare Brussels sprouts the perfect way for you, and you're going to see the error of your ways. Uh, any pets?
Jacques: Uh, nah, no pets.
Conor: Any books you're reading right now or any recent books you have recommendations for?
Jacques: Um, no, not any books right now. I don't remember the last time I actually like wanted to pick up a book.
Conor: Somebody get Jacques a good book so he can develop a love for reading. Uh, what's your dream spring break travel destination?
Jacques: Anywhere on the water. I just want to be like in the Bahamas, somewhere far far away from everybody else.
Conor: What's a TV show, YouTube show, podcast series you're watching or listening to right now?
Jacques: I'm watching on rewatching Forever. It's a show on Netflix. Waiting for that season two to come out.
Conor: One thing on your bucket list that you just know you got to do.
Jacques: I really want to go parasailing over the water.
Conor: Okay, if you had to sing karaoke in front of the entire school, what song are you picking?
Jacques: If I absolutely had to, I would have to do "From Time" by Drake and Jhené Aiko.
Conor: That'd be a winner, uh crowd-pleaser there. Uh, well, Jacques, thank you so much and good luck in the future.
Jacques: All right, thank you.
Doug: Well, thank you again to Jacques and Otshumba for joining the show today, and we have three more seniors for you to meet next week. That will be our last episode of the season. If you like what you heard today, be sure to like, comment, subscribe, share it with a friend, and we'll be back next week.

On this week's podcast, we’ve got everything from lactose-intolerant cats to game-changing first-grade teaching strategies! We sit down with a first grade co-teaching team to explore how pairing physical motions with vocabulary words creates a cognitive superpower in young learners, boosting both social and academic language success.
--Transcript--
This transcript was automatically generated by Gemini from the original audio file. While it aims for high accuracy, it may contain minor discrepancies from the original audio.
Doug: Hey everybody. I'm Doug, that's Conor, and you're listening to the Bethel School District Presents podcast, the only podcast that promises you amazing educators, interesting interviews, and more in 15 minutes or less or the next one is free. Conor, we are once again in tiny chairs, this time in a first grade classroom with Dena Mariano and Brianna Kangas, two educators I wanted you to meet because we have been working on a video showcasing the work that's going on in this very classroom. But before we get into that, you know how we do it, we have to have useless trivia, Conor. Why don't you kick us off?
Conor: Okay, I will, and my useless trivia is—I'm gonna admit it's sub-par this week, but they can't all be winners.
Doug: This is a strong start.
Conor: So Douglas, esteemed podcast guest, did you know that neutron stars pack more mass than the sun into a sphere only about 12 miles wide, making them extraordinarily dense. So, NASA says, quote, "A sugar cube-sized amount of neutron star would weigh about a million tons on Earth."
Dena: Wow.
Doug: What?
Brianna: Oh, my.
Conor: Wrap your head around that, Douglas.
Doug: That's, man.
Conor: And my, my source is baked in because I said NASA says, and we trust NASA, don't we?
Doug: I noticed that, well done. Well, Brianna, let's go over to you. Do you have a sugar cube-sized piece of useless trivia for us?
Brianna: Sure, I don't know about sugar cube-sized but uh it was interesting and I didn't know it. Uh my source comes from the Charlottesville Cat Care Clinic.
Conor: Love that source, by the way.
Brianna: There's a tongue twister for you. Yep, all that alliteration. Did you know that most cats are actually lactose intolerant?
Doug: What?
Conor: I had no clue. How is that possible?
Brianna: I know. I feel like I grew up watching The Aristocats movie. That was one of my favorite films growing up. And there was always these scenes where they drink the milk and the cream and I feel like that was always a thing with cats, but no.
Doug: I had no idea. I grew up with Bugs Bunny and and Sylvester was always drinking milk before he went after Tweety and—
Conor: Those are great documentaries, too.
Doug: Yeah, that's also a good source. Well, Dena, over to you. Your useless trivia for us.
Dena: Ooh, okay. Mine, mine is in honor of something I love. Did you know the unicorn is the national animal of Scotland and April 9th is National Unicorn Day?
Conor: Well, Doug, round us out. What do you got this week? What's your useless trivia?
Doug: Well, I was watching Castle Rock, which is a series based on the Stephen King universe last night. In one of the episodes, one of the main characters is selling a house to two new characters who are only in it for just a second. They come in, and the guy happens to mention that there's dandelions in the yard, and dandelions came over on the Mayflower.
Brianna: Interesting.
Conor: What? So, your source is a fictional TV show? Did you, did you care to like, at least Google to see if that's true?
Dena: Fact check it.
Doug: Okay, so I did fact check it and I went to the Smithsonian, I went to National Geographic, and the New York Times even had an article, and this is true-ish. Dandelions are not native to the United States. They did come over from England because they are very easy to grow. They were a source of greens, they were used for medicine, and they were also—and this is a side piece of useless trivia—because they bloom so early, good for honeybees, which are also not native to the United States. And that is two pieces of useless trivia.
Dena: We might be able to add that, Brianna, to our—
Brianna: —to our instruction—
Dena: —as we're talking right now, teaching our kiddos about the American uh independence. And so we were talking about friends coming over on the Mayflower, so—
Doug: Fantastic.
Dena: There you go.
Conor: What?
Doug: Let's talk about that and I'm curious just to set the stage what hand sign you're going to use for honeybees because it's specifically honeybees that came over. There were other types of bees here, but honeybees were not here.
Brianna: So, we need to be very specific that it's a honeybee. Well, I would make like a little bee with my hand, buzzzz.
Dena: But then honey, I'm like—
Brianna: But honey, I'm like, I don't know, a little twirl of honey.
Doug: There's hands swirling around. Yeah, it's—
Dena & Brianna: Honey bee.
Dena: There we go.
Doug: So, this, Conor, is why I wanted to bring you here and introduce our audience to these amazing educators here. Dena, you've been here for 27 years in the district.
Dena: Yep.
Doug: And Brianna, you have been here for 3 years, and you both work together. Brianna, you are an MLE, Multi-Lingual Education teacher that works all over the school. And Dena, you teach first grade here. So, Brianna, when you're in Dena's classroom, just to connect the dots, you both co-teach. Tell our audience what does that look like and, more importantly, what kind of student growth are you seeing because of it?
Brianna: Yeah. So, co-teaching can look a couple of different ways depending on what the lesson is. But, primarily, it means that there are two teachers in the classroom. They're equally sharing that instruction. So, sometimes that looks like that we are both up in front of the class, both leading instruction, both jumping back and forth between each other. Sometimes it might mean she will take a group of students and I will take a group of students. She might be re-teaching and I might be pre-teaching something. But, it can look a couple different ways in the classroom when we're teaching together.
Dena: Yeah, and sometimes you're leading the class, but I may be crouched down supporting some particular students. So—
Brianna: —or she'll be reading the read aloud and I'm up in front leading the class with our motions that we've created for our vocabulary words.
Conor: Which is really interesting and we've already got a little sneak peek of this, but could you explain a little bit more about these hand signals because this is not sign language you're teaching them, it's something different, right? So, can you tell us what is that about and what are they getting out of it?
Brianna: Exactly. So, we typically come up with motions or gestures that go with our vocabulary words that we're learning. So, we're explicitly teaching vocabulary words that the students are going to encounter in the read aloud and that we want them to be able to utilize when they're speaking to each other about the content. And there is an official term for these gestures that we do with vocabulary and it's called TPR or Total Physical Response. It's actually a GLAD strategy, which is a language acquisition strategy. GLAD stands for Guided Language Acquisition Design. But, when you pair a motion with a vocabulary word, when you're saying something at the same time your body is doing something, there's something that happens in your brain that's going to help you remember and connect that word. So, it gives another access point to that word and another way for students then to communicate and recall that word later on when we're reading it or utilizing it when we're speaking.
Dena: And it helps not only our multi-lingual learners, but all first graders because all of our students are learning language. We're all here at school learning new academic language. So, whether you're learning English for the first time or you are a monolingual English speaker, you're still learning that new academic language. So, Brianna and I co-plan in order to facilitate that co-teaching, and we are able then to embed those language support strategies throughout the instruction.
Doug: And that's amazing for learning vocabulary, but the next step, of course, is then putting those words into thought and answering questions and things like that, and learning writing. What you all told me last time was that you will see students at their desk making the hand signs as they're remembering the vocabulary word as they're writing. Tell us a little bit about that, and then also tell us about your multi-lingual students who aren't ready to write yet but are able to give oral presentations.
Dena: Well, one of the things I've really learned from working with Brianna is the importance of the oral language practice, or rehearsing orally. Um you can't write what you cannot say. And so uh in the past, in my teaching practice, I would have kids a little mini-lesson and then go to write. And now, I've definitely switched because I've seen the real impact that oral language practice has on our kiddos. So, every day we're practicing how we're going to, let's say, for example, structure our opinion, and it's all oral practice. So, by the time they get to that point to write it, they don't have to worry about the structure of the opinion writing, we've practiced that. They don't have to worry about the vocabulary, we've practiced that. They don't have to worry about the temporal or transition words, we've practiced that. They can really just focus in on the mechanics of writing. And then I have kiddos who aren't yet able to write, but they are still able, through that oral practice, to practice first grade writing standards and communicate their learning.
Brianna: And then they're also, at the same time, building that academic oral language structure through that practice. And then when they are at that point where they are able to independently write, they've already practiced those grade level expectations for writing, and that skill will just transfer. So, they're practicing that skill orally and then once they're at that time when they're able to produce it in writing, that skill will transfer to the writing piece.
Doug: Yeah, one thing I'm loving about listening to you both speak about this, we're talking about teaching first graders and you're using words like "temporal" and all these different strategies. All the work that goes behind the scenes, I just want our audience to appreciate that teachers put in each and every day, no matter the grade level, to make sure our kids are really achieving their absolute best.
Conor: Well, the one thing that's really obvious talking to you even for this short period of time is you both have amazing energy and a huge passion for teaching. Can you tell us a little bit where both of you got your love of teaching and your desire to be teachers? Dena, we'll start with you.
Dena: Well, my both my parents uh were educators. Uh my dad started out in uh high school teaching math and then coaching and worked his way up to eventually uh superintendent of the Yakima School District.
Conor: Wow.
Dena: And then my mom worked with uh adults with developmental disabilities. And so, I've just always kind of grown up around helping people. And I knew that I wanted to go into a career to help people and seeing that role model of my parents doing that in such a way, I was inspired. I knew that I really wanted to work with um kiddos that maybe needed a little something different, a little something more, and so I went to school and got uh certified as a special education teacher. So, that's actually where I started. Now, this is another area in which I can grow that love and passion and my my skills for meeting, again, unique needs of students.
Conor: That's awesome, and it's so great that you're able to kind of tailor your specific skill set to the job you're doing, and it sounds like you're having a pretty good time doing it. Um Brianna, what about you? You you're in a a a little earlier stage in your career, but you're, obviously, in love with this job, I would assume. Dena, your parents were educators, and I know at least one of your parents was an educator, as well. Can you tell us about that?
Brianna: Yes. So, actually, both of my parents were also educators. So, my mom was a teacher for a long time. She taught French and then music, and then she became an administrator, and was an assistant principal and is now a principal. Um and my dad has taught high school and AP Chem for the last 30 years at the same school.
Conor: Wow.
Brianna: Yep, I think he's planning on retiring next year, so we're getting close. But, I grew up with a lot of educators in my family, as well. But, I kind of had the opposite experience of Dena where I had a lot of people in my family in education and I said, "Nope, I'm not gonna do that." Uh so, when I went to college, I loved French in high school and my mom spoke French, and so I wanted to be able to learn and speak with her. And so, then I ended up majoring in French and international relations in college. And I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do after I left, but I always knew that I wanted to study abroad and live abroad. And so, my French professor recommended a program where I could live in France, but I would be teaching English in a school over there. And so, I moved to France after I graduated from college and I lived there for a year, and I was a an English teaching assistant in a French middle school. And as much as I tried to not love it, I loved it. I absolutely I absolutely loved it. Basically, this was an equivalent of if a student here was taking, you know, a a French class or a Spanish class or Japanese at school, and so they were acquiring language, and I loved seeing the connections that students made between French and English and how much growth they were able to make in that time that I was working with them. And so, when I came back home, I knew that I wanted to teach in some capacity and I knew I wanted to teach and work with students who were bilingual or multilingual. So, then I got my master's in education with an emphasis in teaching multilingual learners, and I've been at Shining Mountain now for the last 3 years and—
Dena: —She is fabulous. We're glad she's here.
Brianna: —it's been it's been the best. But, this is not this is definitely not the path that I thought I would take, but I'm happy that I'm here and I love it.
Doug: Well, we are happy that you're both here and your students are, too. Let's talk about student success. Do you have a student success story that stands out to you from your years teaching?
Dena: So, we have this one student, uh a newcomer to the United States. And Brianna did a wonderful job working with uh the student helping this friend learn a lot of vocabulary needed just to function as a student uh here in class. But, as the year went on, the growth that we were able to see with this kiddo is amazing. Went from maybe just pointing to a picture to answer a question, a yes or no question, to now speaking and using those vocabulary words and motions on their own.
Brianna: And we've seen growth in both social language and academic language, so language kind of falls into those two buckets, social language is like the language that we use for kids like recess talk, like what you would use on the playground. And then there's academic language, and the growth that we've seen with this student not only in that social language, which is typically what students will develop first, but in that academic language, those complex sentences with rich vocabulary related to our content, has been has been huge.
Conor: That's so cool, and that must be such a satisfying feeling when you've worked with a student for so long and then just see him kind of blossoming into this success story. And, Brianna, as a multilingual person and as someone who teaches this, what are some of the benefits that a student like that can look forward to as, you know, they're building this amazing base of bilingualism, how is that going to help them in the future?
Brianna: Being multilingual is such a superpower, I mean, for a couple of different reasons. One, there's a lot of brain research around being multilingual and how it strengthens your brain. There's different neural pathways that are strengthened and created when you are acquiring and learning another language. And so, it just makes your brain super strong, and it helps you be able to learn and critically think as you're developing those second languages or those other languages. And then just being able to communicate with more people and build relationships, and different opportunities are open for you when you're multilingual.
Doug: I love that. Thank you both for everything you're doing for our students here at Shining Mountain Elementary School. Your students are lucky to have you both, and thanks for joining us on the show today.
Dena: Thank you for having us.
Brianna: Yeah, thank you.
Doug: Absolutely, thank you again, Dena and Brianna, and we will be back next week with a brand new episode.

On this week's podcast, we explore how Bethel is preparing students for life after graduation, including a new state-of-the-art welding class! We also highlight the success of our Unified Sports teams and the positive impact athletics has on a student's GPA. As always, we'll include a bit of wit and trivia at no additional charge, exploring the surprising midwest origins of a global icon and the Guinness World Record secrets that Seattle holds.
--TRANSCRIPT--
This transcript was automatically generated by Gemini from the original audio file. While it aims for high accuracy, it may contain minor discrepancies from the original audio.
Conor: Hi everybody. I'm Conor, that's Doug, and this is the Bethel School District presents podcast, The Only Educational Podcast That Matters, and we have a fantastic show. Doug, I want to knock your socks off here, but we only have three shows left this season. Can you believe that?
Doug: I can't. After this week, only three left to go. And then it's summertime and you and I will be kicked back on the shores of Spanaway Lake with root beers in our hands and smiles on our faces. But there's a lot of ground to cover before that happens. Today we're going to be talking about impact fees, our Superintendent’s Student Leadership Council, athletics, and a brand new welding program that's coming to the new Bethel High—that is worth hanging on for. But first, of course, we're going to start with useless trivia and Conor, I'll kick it to you.
Conor: Well, thank you there Doug, and what a show we've got lined up for you. But first, let's get into some useless trivia. Mine's especially useless today. Doug, did you know that Barbie—the doll Barbie—isn't just Barbie? Her full name is actually Barbara Millicent Roberts, and she's from the fictional town of Willows, Wisconsin.
Doug: No way.
Conor: Turns out Mattel, which created the doll, wanted to give Barbie a bit of a backstory, make her feel like a real person. So they teamed up with Random House in the 1960s to create a series of novels that flesh out that backstory. In 1961's Here’s Barbie, we learn she's the daughter of George and Margaret Roberts, and she lived in the fictional town of Willows. Her first name, Barbara, isn't random—that's the name of Mattel co-founder Ruth Handler's daughter, and kind of creepily, Ken was her son.
Doug: Oh, that's real bizarre.
Conor: Yeah.
Doug: Well, I didn't know she was a Midwest girl. I would have guessed she was from New York or something like that.
Conor: No, she's straight out of cheese country.
Doug: I love it.
Conor: And and my source on that one is Smithsonian Magazine.
Doug: Wow, they're really doing hard-hitting journalism over at Smithsonian. Well, my useless trivia this week is about bridges and Conor, did you know that the world's longest floating bridge is in Seattle?
Conor: I did not know that.
Doug: Really? Did you know that the world's first and second longest floating bridges are actually in Seattle?
Conor: I did not know.
Doug: Well, I was going to go farther because it goes to four. The world's four longest floating bridges are all in Seattle and this—well, one through three is due to Lake Washington being 200 feet deep with a further 200 feet of soft silt below it, which would make a suspension bridge very complicated, very costly. And so this all goes back to Homer Hadley. I love people named Homer. This is 1921, and his idea to have a floating bridge was laughed out of civic meetings. It wasn't until two decades later with the support of Lacy V. Murrow—yes, brother of Edward R. Murrow, Lacy was a director of highways—that they finally secured the funding through the New Deal. So the longest floating bridge in the world is the 520 floating bridge—it's over 7,000 feet long. Number two is the Lacy V. Murrow Memorial Bridge, that's I-90 eastbound. And the Homer Hadley Memorial Bridge is I-90 westbound—that's number three.
Conor: Wow, very cool. I did not know that. But the question is: where’s number four?
Doug: Ah, thanks for bringing it back. The fourth is the Hood Canal Bridge, actually over 6,000 feet. Now technically it's the third longest, but Washington State DOT lists it as number four. I'm not really sure the politics behind that, but I'm sure there are some. And for the train fans out there—hi Dad—the East Link light rail was just completed this year and this is the first time—another first in history—that a light rail system was built to cross a floating bridge. They had to design these special track bridges that can flex in six different directions to keep the train on the tracks, and it was built on the existing westbound I-90. My sources this week are Sound Transit, Washington State DOT, Atlas Obscura, and your favorite, Guinness World Records.
Conor: Wow, lots of sources for a jam-packed little bit of trivia there Doug, but we do have a very jam-packed show as well. So let's get right into it. Let's talk some budget.
Doug: Yeah, we reported from issues from the state that are impacting our budget here in Bethel, that includes transitional kindergarten funding, local effort assistance, and of course our levies, which passed this February. Thank you, voters!
Conor: Today we're going to be talking impact fees. This is a fee that's imposed on new construction sites and simply put, it's just not enough. Here's Superintendent Brian Lowney.
Brian Lowney: President Young and I penned a letter, sent it off this week to Pierce County Executive Dammeier, encouraging the Council to consider charging higher impact fees, which are the fees for new construction in Pierce County. Those offset the costs of the new students that come along with new construction. Currently, the the money that we receive in impact fees doesn't even come close—for each new residence—doesn't even come close to putting in a portable to house the students that we receive, let alone classroom spaces in buildings that are conducive to learning. So um, wanted to let you know that we were working on that, on advocating on our behalf—our school community's behalf—on impact fees.
Doug: And like all budget items here in Bethel, money from impact fees are critical because each dollar impacts our kids.
Conor: And speaking of which, here's senior Leslie Covarrubias on what the vibe is at our high schools right now.
Leslie Covarrubias: As we get closer to the end of the year, you know, seniors are buzzing, they're ready to graduate. They're everyone's wrapping up final projects, and as well as this is like the last week of AP testing, students are also finishing up their AP exams. Thankfully, I did mine last week and I'm done. There's definitely a busy atmosphere right now as everyone's so excited to just get into summer and many are just super excited to just move on.
Doug: Along with being an amazing senior, Leslie has been part of our Superintendent's Student Leadership Council for years, and they recently held their annual dinner. In fact, Conor, I can tell you I went to this dinner—the food was fantastic. The Pierce County Skills Center's culinary program made all that. And at that event, the SSLC presented their concerns and even had some ideas for the school board. They had round table discussions and really got into it. Here's Leslie again.
Leslie Covarrubias: The SSLC dinner was absolutely fantastic. Students talking with you guys, we felt very closely connected and it was actually very, very organized this year. I was completely impressed. Dinner was also amazing, by the way. And it was just really brought us an opportunity to get closer with you guys, as well as to share our concerns and actually feel heard. So I also want to commemorate you guys for showing up and being there and listening.
Conor: Well, Leslie's heading off to Seattle University this fall and she and the rest of her SSLC team members are leaving behind an amazing legacy. Here's school board director John Manning.
John Manning: This is my first time attending one of these and it was truly impressive to see how they could articulate concerns and the passion that they had behind that.
Doug: The students did not shy away from heavy topics at this. They led discussions on things like staff diversity, multicultural programs, the need for interpreters for students, and like I said, they brought practical solutions to the table, requesting updates to advisory that included real-life skills like financial literacy, resume building, and interviewing.
Conor: Absolutely. And director Terrance Mayers said student voice is incredibly valuable for the board as every decision they make does impact students.
Terrance Mayers: If you want to go fast you go alone, if you want to go far you go together. You know, our our students, they speak the truth, and I just love every moment of it.
Conor: Every one of those amazing students had an interest in leaving the district better than they found it, making it better for the next class.
Doug: Well Conor, let's switch hit here and change up the infield and maybe get ready for some hoop time.
Conor: Nice transition Doug, you are obviously not a jock. But let's talk some sports and as we mentioned before, they are levy funded, so we never miss a chance to say thank you voters. But Doug, what's what's on the sporting agenda right now?
Doug: Well, let's kind of recap the school year. It's always fun to see how our teams are doing throughout the year, but there's a lot more to athletics than that. Here's Bryan Streleski, he's our director of athletics and security.
Bryan Streleski: It's really important to remember that two-thirds of our athletes are not on the varsity teams that play in any of our sports, whether that's in our middle schools or high schools. Two-thirds of our kids are playing on sub-varsity, which means they're developmental. We're trying to make them better, trying to help them improve, to get better every single day.
Conor: Sports help students prioritize growth and academics. Not only do their graduation and attendance increase when involved in one or more activities, but the GPA jumps as well. Here's Bryan again.
Bryan Streleski: The GPAs for our student-athletes is significantly higher, almost a half of a point higher for our kids that are involved in athletics every single day. Those kids are performing in a classroom at a higher rate than every other kid in the general population. So it's super important for our kids to maintain those grades. They gotta be eligible so they've got to do it that way to stay eligible to participate, but they're not just staying eligible to participate, they're excelling in the classroom.
Doug: Sports can also help students foster friendships, there's community pride there, and there's tons of opportunities for our kids to participate.
Conor: We recently added girls flag football, so we are always moving forward.
Bryan Streleski: This year we added a girls wrestling tournament, so they wrestled in a girls wrestling tournament at the middle school level. The high school's been doing it for years, the middle school were able to do that this year. So they had a place they got to compete with their same gendered students and be able to compete. Our biggest thing was get those girls on a podium so their friends want to come out and wrestle with them.
Doug: And another aspect of athletics we love to highlight is our unified sports teams. That's where our special education students and general education students team up—they're on the same teams playing all kinds of different sports.
Conor: Yeah, it's such an amazing program. They get to play basketball, cornhole, e-sports, track and field—it's awesome.
Bryan Streleski: Last week we ran our Mike McDonald Invitational, which is our district championship kind of what we call it for our track meet. We had seven heats of the 100 of unified. We are lining up unified kids they are a part of our general population, our varsity track meet, we're timing them. They're moving on to the district tournament next week and elite tournament just like we are. I was with one of our Bethel coaches today and she was talking to me—we have the most unified athletes moving on out of our regular season into the league tournament for track and field. It's phenomenal. It's great for kids, it's good for our students with special needs, it's also great for our partner kids to learn and grow and understand how to work within a community.
Doug: And before we move on to our final topic of the day, we'd be remiss if we didn't hit a few athletic highlights and since I've proved my jock-ular expertise earlier, I'm going to kick that to you Conor.
Conor: Well thank you Doug, and it was a heck of a year for Bethel athletics. Not only in team sports, but in individuals and some of our former superstars are really shining out there in the world. Vea Iaone, who was the pride of Graham-Kapowsin High School, helped that team win the state championship a few years ago, was the number 14 draft pick in the first round of the NFL draft. It's amazing. Congratulations Vea. And can you believe it Doug, little old Bethel School District could potentially have three NFL starters at the beginning of the year.
Doug: I couldn't believe the draft was on broadcast TV this year.
Conor: It's big, big business.
Doug: I'm missing out.
Conor: So, some other highlights: GK had the number two ranked softball team in the state this year. Bethel High School's unified basketball team won the state championship.
Doug: Let's go!
Conor: And Cedarcrest Middle School was really shining—they came through with four league championships this year, so well done everybody.
Doug: That is amazing and everybody includes 4,817 students at our middle and high school levels. They participated in athletics this year. It is a huge opportunity for those kids—increases GPA, increases attendance, increases graduation rates. We love it and again that's all thanks to our voters for supporting that levy back in February. Our educational programs and operations levy is the backbone of our athletics program. Thank you, voters.
Conor: Hear, hear. Thank you again voters. And let's dip into our final topic of the day. We're hitting welding, Doug. Tell us about it.
Doug: Well, if there's one thing I know more about than welding, it's athletics. But Bethel is launching a welding technology class. It's going to be at the new Bethel High School, and it's going to expand access to high-demand skilled trades pathways for our students. Again, at the new Bethel High, and that's another chance for us to say thank you voters.
Conor: So Doug, we toured the dedicated welding classroom, we've both used the VR welding equipment, and actually watched you somewhat succeeding in actually welding something. I don't think you caught anything on fire, if you did it was well after we left.
Doug: [laughter]
Conor: But it looked—the mask looked hilarious on you.
Doug: I appreciate that. And with impressive welding equipment, you need a great curriculum. And so our school board has recently approved a new curriculum that'll make sure students are learning everything they need to know—that includes welding safety, blueprint reading, measurement content, all kinds of big stuff. In fact, this one curriculum is going to tick the boxes on multiple of our strategic plan goals. It's going to expand career-connected learning opportunities, increase access to high-demand career pathways, and strengthen college, career, and life readiness for our students.
Conor: That is very, very cool.
Doug: Yeah, it's going to be huge and board director Roseanna Camacho agreed.
Roseanna Camacho: We went and did the Bethel High School uh tour and saw the welding room and oh my lord, that is going to be amazing. It was pretty amazing. What's going to happen at Bethel High School with any student that comes through this program starting next year is just state-of-the-art.
Conor: So just to clarify Doug, is this only at the new Bethel High School? What about the other high schools? They getting a program?
Doug: It's a great question and they are not at this point because the cost is incredibly high. The only reason it's at the new Bethel High School is because it was part of the bond. Thank you voters! This dedicated welding classroom is all thanks to you. Let's hear from the expert Jeff Johnson, our Director of Career and College Readiness.
Jeff Johnson: The equipment that was purchased was included in the the construction costs and I have to give a big shout-out to our construction team. They found a way to help us really outfit the shop with industry-quality equipment. When I was there yesterday, some of the the workers were in there saying that this shop is nicer than the ones that they learned in at their community colleges or technical schools. So um, it really is industry quality.
Conor: Yes, huge, huge shout-out to our voters. You are watching the 2019 school construction bond in action right now.
Doug: Absolutely. This is going to be a huge opportunity for our students. They will cross the graduation stage not only with their high school graduation but with enough certifications and certificates to get them the job that they want right out of high school.
Conor: Well, great show Douglas. We'll be back next week with a brand new one. We are talking with two teachers, one a 27-year veteran, another in her third year of teaching. See you next week.

On this week’s podcast, we hear about a grueling four-and-a-half-mile trek up an ash field that resulted in a mountain summit and a vow to never do it again. Plus, we learn how students are getting dirty, finding caterpillars, and taking ownership of their very own garden, as well as what books we should be reading this summer. As always, we’ve got useless trivia where we find out why you should always cite your sources, even when they come from a dusty, centuries-old book.
--TRANSCRIPT--
This transcript was automatically generated by Gemini from the original audio file. While it aims for high accuracy, it may contain minor discrepancies from the original audio.
Conor: Hey everybody, I'm Conor, that's Doug, and this is the Bethel School District presents podcast, the greatest podcast in the history of mankind. And we are on special assignment today. We're on location at beautiful Kapowsin Elementary and we're here to speak with teacher librarian Amy Dalin, who is a superstar out here, and we have a lot to talk about. But before we get into that, as we do, we always do our trivia—useless, sometimes useful, mostly useless. So Doug, you're my sidekick, why don't you start us off with some useless trivia?
Doug: Well, I'm glad I picked mine because I didn't know we were recording in the library today. We just said pick a quiet spot and turns out your classroom is a quiet spot as teacher librarian. Mine is on the history of magazine publishing in these United States. The first magazine published in the United States was in 1741. There are actually two of them. They were kind of competitive. Andrew Bradford, his debut magazine American Magazine came out first, and he beat one Benjamin Franklin to the punch. Benjamin Franklin's General Magazine—terrible titles both of them. These came out three days apart with Bradford's beating him to the punch. Of course, you haven't heard of them because they didn't last very long. And so the first mass-circulation magazine that you would have heard about is the Saturday Evening Post. That came out in 1821 and printed until 1969. That's my useless trivia, Conor. Top that one.
Conor: Yeah, I only read the National Enquirer, so I don't know about any of these other ones. But no, quality piece of useless trivia there, Douglas. Mine is animal-related. And while most people know there are packs of dogs and schools of fish, Douglas, did you know that a group of lemurs is officially known as a conspiracy, or a group of ferrets is a business? How about a parliament of owls or a flamboyance of flamingos? Yes, I could go on and on, and I will as a matter of fact. How about a bloat of hippos or an ambush of tigers, a shrewdness of apes? And you might be wondering who comes up with these wacky names?
Doug: Who does make these up, Conor?
Conor: Well, many of them can be traced back to 1480 from a book called The Book of Saint Albans, which was a landmark English book covering hawking, hunting, and heraldry. Source on that one is Mental Floss.
Doug: Just a fantastic bit of alliteration at the end. Do you, Amy, in the Kapowsin library here have a copy of The Book of Saint Albans?
Amy: I do not. I don't think we do.
Doug: Oh, bummer. We gotta get you a copy. We gotta write off for one.
Amy: I bet it's a great beach read. I'm sure the elementary kids will really love that.
Conor: Well, Amy, thanks for joining us first, and let's hear your little bit of useless trivia.
Amy: Okay, when I read the email, I really thought it was useless trivia about myself.
Conor: That works too. There are no wrong answers.
Amy: So, I'm really double-jointed in my elbows. So like, my elbows like, just completely bend inwards.
Conor: So for our listeners, I'm gonna have to have you show us and then... oh my god, that is frightening. I wasn't gonna go that far, but... is it painful?
Amy: No, it looks like it should be, but no, it's not. It's just the way that it works.
Doug: I love—well, that's your source. I didn't give my source actually, my source was Texas A&M by the way for my magazine trivia. We do like to source our useless trivia, and that's our contribution for the kids out there. Always cite your sources.
Doug: So Amy, driving into Kapowsin Elementary, if people haven't been out here, it's right out on Meridian. You take a left on 264th, which is much farther than most people go, and there's the little Kapowsin Elementary school here that does amazing things for kids each and every day. And I pulled into my parking spot and Mount Rainier is basically sitting on my dashboard. It is beautiful today. It's blue skies, a couple of clouds just over the mountain. I had to take a picture, which is why I was late coming in, sorry about that. Appreciate Conor setting up everything in my absence. So our first question for you, when's the last time you've been to Mount Rainier and have you ever summited it?
Amy: I have never summited Mount Rainier. I have been—we went a few months ago. We go to Mount Rainier a lot. We have a pass, and that was one of the first things that I noticed when I came to Kapowsin was just the view. Like, it is absolutely stunning here. I have summited Mount Saint Helens, and we summited that last year, last summer.
Doug: Really?
Amy: Yes, and I don't think I'll ever summit a mountain again.
Conor: So, I have never summited a mountain and I hope I can say that for the rest of my life. For our listeners, what was so difficult about it? What made you not want to do it anymore?
Amy: I definitely think we should have prepared more. I was like, oh, it's four and a half miles, like, we can do it.
Doug: That sounds like just a hike. Sounds easy.
Amy: Yeah, and I was like, that sounds easy enough. And then we get up and the last like two miles is all like ash fields. And so then you take one step forward and you slide three steps back, and it's just the entire way up. And then we got up to the crater and I was so excited, and of course it's like clouded. Like, we were like in a cloud. So you just like look in front of you and there's nothing. Like, and I was like, I'm so glad I did this today. Totally worth it.
Doug: You got a good podcast story out of it.
Amy: We do.
Doug: It absolutely was. Well, Amy, you are a teacher librarian here at Kapowsin. How long have you been here in this role, and have you taught anywhere else in the district?
Amy: This is my second year here as a teacher librarian. It's my second year as a librarian in total. I did teach in a different district, and I was actually a high school science teacher for three years before I made the transition to the library, which...
Conor: To the greatest district of all time.
Amy: In a great district. I really enjoyed it.
Conor: I love the job of librarian. You're—one, you're around books obviously, which is a great benefit. One of the cool things about your job is you get to lead your school's Battle of the Books. Can you tell us what that's like?
Amy: Yes, we actually this morning had our school battle. We had three really amazing teams. The kids did such a good job. And it's fun because yes, I have these kids in class, but it's fun to like get to see them outside of class and know their personality a little bit differently. And it's incredible to see these kids grow and get excited about books. That's why I became a librarian is I just, I saw a lot of kids just not being excited about books, and I was like, that's what I want to do.
Doug: That is fantastic motivation. So at what point in your life did you get inspired to get into the field of teaching and librarianship?
Amy: Yeah, I went to WSU and I got a degree in biology, and it was my senior year and I was like, what am I gonna do with a biology degree? And I had become a nursing assistant and I was thinking I was gonna go that track, and then I just really did not like it. And my grandmother was a teacher and I've done all these things growing up, and I had a wonderful high school social studies teacher, Mr. Hodis, who has now since passed. He really just inspired me to go into education. He was a rock during some really hard times in high school, and I wanted to be that for other kids. So I got to teach for three years for a high school and I loved every minute of it, and now I'm here and I've loved every minute of that too. So, I love education and I think it's a great field.
Conor: That's amazing, and we love having people who love education being in our district and the ones leading our students.
Conor: And I can only assume as someone who's chosen profession is to be among books that you love books. I'm gonna put you on the spot, what's your favorite book of all time? Children's or otherwise.
Amy: A book that I constantly go back and reread would probably be Pride and Prejudice. I just love, love, love that story. Like, I could read it over and over again. It is just... I'm such a sucker for romance books. So...
Doug: That's one I've never tackled even when Pride and Prejudice and Zombies came out, I still didn't... it still didn't get me. So, Conor you a Jane Austen fan?
Conor: I've never read any Jane Austen books. I've seen lots of adaptations. I should read it. So Doug, while we're talking books, let's go around the horn. What's your favorite book of all time?
Doug: The first one that comes to mind is John Steinbeck's Cannery Row. I love the scene that he sets and the characters and just the whole idea of that row, which is still there, I guess in Monterey you can visit it, but it's now changed from an old cannery at the end of the road to the aquarium. So that's a place I still want to go. I love Doc and all the different characters. Great book, great read.
Conor: Yeah, I know you're a Steinbeck head because you've also—you've name-dropped him a couple of times on the pod.
Doug: I have, because Travels with Charley is also one of my—one of my favorites. Yeah.
Conor: Conor, over to you. You started this mess, now you gotta finish it. What's your favorite book of all time off the top of your head?
Conor: I'm going to—it changes constantly, but since we've got kind of semi-problematic old white guys, I will go with Ernest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast. I've read it many, many times and as anyone who has visited Paris or wants to visit Paris, it's a very romantic idea of what that city is all about in a very romantic time. So I'll go with A Moveable Feast.
Doug: That's a pretty good pick. I just read that last year actually, and I will say it's aiight.
Conor: Okay, so not really the Doug endorsement on that one. The review is in.
Doug: Well, Amy back over to you. It is getting to be the end of the school year here. We're not going to count the days, but what is it like for a teacher at the end of the school year? The kids I'm sure are getting squirrelly, the teachers are getting excited, and you still got stuff to teach. Like, what—what is that like for you here in the library?
Amy: Yeah, I always like to say my classroom management style is like controlled chaos. Like, we teach little humans and they are hyper, like all the time. And I think that was a big adjustment from high school where the kids like don't talk to you and they're just like on their phones like heads down, but then you come here and they like want to be with you all the time and that was like a huge adjustment. And so I just love to say like controlled chaos. Like, we will be doing activities, but it'll probably be loud, and it'll probably get a little crazy. We like to take the kids outside to read sometimes, like when it's really beautiful. Just like, we have bins of books and I'm like, let's just go out, sit down on the grass and enjoy some sunshine and read some books.
Doug: And put a book in your hand. That's—there's nothing better than that.
Conor: Well, as if you didn't have enough to do, you are also in charge of running this school's very cool garden and the garden club. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Amy: Yeah, we have a really unique opportunity here. We have this beautiful garden out there, I don't know if you guys saw it when you guys drove in, and it was taken care of by a former employee who had retired and there just was an adjustment and a movement, and I have a science background and they were like, "What do you think if you started a gardening club?" And I was like, "Yeah, that sounds so fun," thinking like 10, 15 kids would like want to go out there. And then more and more and more permission slips got turned in and I was like, "Oh no." Now we have 70 amazing kiddos who joined gardening club. We had gardening club yesterday. Talk about controlled chaos, that is a great group of kiddos who are just really passionate and like... but they sometimes they finish so fast and they're like, "What's next? What's next?" And I just love that they like want to be outside. And I love that they want to be outside, they want to get dirty, they love finding bugs. Like, that is their favorite things. Yesterday they found caterpillars and they thought that was like the coolest thing they'd ever seen in their whole life.
Amy: And so it's been great. We've had lots of community outreach. We've had, you know, people donate soil and seeds and their time. We've had lots of family volunteers. Yesterday the kids made seed bombs that are currently drying over there for our staff appreciation. Like I said, we're just taking it one day at a time. I think it's a little chaotic out there, and they planted yesterday for the first time, the seed starters that we did and we'll see if they survive, but they did it on their own and that's what's really important is that that is their garden, that is the Kapowsin students' garden, and I'm just more here to make sure we're all safe.
Doug: I love—I mean what a great hands-on opportunity for the kids to get out there and you said get dirty and just get some of that energy out and then also learn about how how nature works and finding those different bugs and all those seed—seed bombs did you call them?
Amy: Yeah, they're called seed bombs. They're literally paper, like wet paper, and you put seeds in them and mold them, and then you let them dry and then you can literally like chuck them in your yard and they grow great plants.
Doug: That's awesome. So it's like wildflowers and things like that?
Amy: Yeah, wildflowers. The different colors are different seeds, cause I didn't want staff members to be like guessing what's going to grow in their yard.
Doug: I was wondering about that. Yeah, so for our listeners we're looking at a table over there's a—there's a white sheet down for the drying and then just pink and blue and purple and green and yellow. I mean honestly Conor it looks like spitballs from when I was in school.
Amy: They really do. Just add some seeds to it and look what you can grow.
Conor: Exactly. Well that's very cool. And to wrap things up today since we rarely have the chance to speak with a real-life librarian, can you give us a couple summer reading recommendations either for kids or for adults, whatever strikes your fancy?
Amy: Ooh, okay. For little kids, our Children's Choice Award books are being voted on this year, but The Bakery Dragon is probably one of like my top favorites. It is so beautiful. The artwork in it is beautiful. Great for young kids. For like middle-aged kids, Four Eyes is a graphic novel that is amazing and that's actually one of our battle books. And for adults, I just think if you have a book that you want to read, just read. I am a firm believer in reading what you want. Project Hail Mary just came out in theaters and that is an excellent book. I would recommend that one.
Doug: I—I can also recommend that one. Fantastic book. And we'll go around the table again here real quick. What is a book, Conor we'll start with you, that you saw yourself in as a young lad?
Conor: So I didn't get serious about reading until I was in my late teens, early twenties, kind of college age. And the first book I remember reading where it wasn't that I saw myself but it kind of inspired me was Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon. And it's about a young—an older writer and a younger writer. I identified with the younger writer at the time, now I identify more with the older writer when I read it. But lovely book and it definitely sparked my interest in reading and writing.
Doug: Interesting. That's—that's a good pick. Amy how about you?
Amy: I don't know if I necessarily like always see myself in her, but I like destroyed reading the Nancy Drew series. Like all of them. And she's you know, this young girl that's like blonde and just smart and funny and very nosey I think. And so I definitely saw myself in Nancy Drew a bit growing up.
Doug: Fantastic. I read a lot as a—as a young kid. We—my mom used to take us to the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh and we'd get out whatever 10, 15, however many the max books you could get and I would have them all done in a week over the summer and really like that. So the ones that really I saw myself in was Encyclopedia Brown was a big one, and then Ramona and Beezus had a friend whose name was Henry Huggins, and I saw myself in him too, which is a—that's a deep cut for the Ramona and Beezus fans out there.
Conor: Well this has been a really fun conversation. Thank you so much again to Amy Dalin for joining us today, teacher librarian extraordinaire over at Kapowsin Elementary school. And we are going to be back next week with another great episode. Thanks for joining us.

On this week’s podcast, a freshman tells us how a 9th Grade Success program changed her first year in high school. She also shares how she’s paying the impact of that program forward. We also dive into some sobering news regarding legislative budget cuts that could impact the district by nearly $30 million over the next three years. Plus we talk tech and learn about the future of AI in our schools. As always we've got useless trivia where we'll find out which iconic children's author coined a common insult.
--TRANSCRIPT--
Doug: Hey everybody, I’m Doug, that’s Conor, and you’re listening to—and I just fact-checked this with both ChatGPT and Google's Gemini and a couple other off-brand AIs, but we are, in fact, the greatest popfast in the history of the world. That’s what they told me. It sounds fantastic. You’re listening to the Bethel School District Presents Podcast and we will be talking about artificial intelligence—and no, I’m not just talking about Conor here—but later in the show, we’ll be talking about AI and how it’s impacting our staff and students. We’re also going to be talking about a unique way that Graham-Kapowsin High School is welcoming freshmen; we’ll be hearing from one of those freshmen later in the show also. And before that, we will talk about some legislative changes that are really muddying the waters for the future of our district. But first... boy, that was dire. We do have to do useless trivia because we are contractually obligated to do that. So Conor, let me kick it to you with all those words from that intro.
Conor: All right, Doug. I fell asleep in that intro. And let me just tell you, my intelligence is real and it’s spectacular. So, Douglas, did you know that we owe the word "nerd" to Dr. Seuss?
Doug: Really?
Conor: Don’t answer that. It’s true. Just let me tell you.
Doug: It was a rhetorical question.
Conor: I didn’t want you to actually answer. The first documented appearance of the word "nerd" was in Seuss's 1950 book, If I Ran the Zoo, describing a small, grumpy-looking creature. Before that, if you were a bookish, nerdish-type person like Doug, people would just call you a square.
Doug: Oh no, that’s worse.
Conor: It’s much worse. And my source on that is the American Heritage Dictionary.
Doug: That’s a great piece of trivia. I love If I Ran the Zoo. Read that to the kids growing up. "If I ran the zoo," said young Gerald McGrew, "I'd make a few changes, that’s just what I’d do." And you can verify for our audience, off the top of my head.
Conor: He was not reading that. I don’t know if that’s good or bad that he knows it that well, but... Well, my useless trivia goes back a little bit farther than yours. We’re heading back to 1776, Conor, and settle in because it’s another long piece of useless trivia from me this week. The short version, if you want to listen to that and then skip ahead, is as the American Revolution was getting underway, a lead statue of King George III in New York City was melted down to produce bullets for the Continental Army.
Conor: Well, that’s pretty cool. Fitting.
Doug: Well, the story goes back to July 9th, 1776, and a group of 40 soldiers tore down a statue of King George III. And this is no small feat, mind you. This is a 4,000-pound statue of King George on horseback, mind you. They pulled it to the ground, broke it into pieces with the intent of taking it up to Connecticut and turning it into musket balls. They made it most of the way and then they were attacked by British loyalists who stole about half of the statue and buried the pieces so they couldn’t be used. Now, the other half did make it to Connecticut, it was melted down, and it made 42,088 musket balls that the Continental Army definitely used in the American Revolution because archaeologists have found the musket balls and compared them to pieces of the statue—the ones that were stolen and buried—that are in museums now. And the chemical makeup is exactly the same. If you want to see one of those pieces for yourself, the New York Historical Society has the tail; it weighs 200 pounds. There’s another piece, a left hand and forearm fragment, that actually sold at auction for $207,000. And that is my useless trivia.
Conor: Wow, that is fascinating. And you may have beat your own record for the longest bit of trivia, so congratulations on that, Doug. And who might your sources be on this little nugget?
Doug: Well, this nugget comes to you from a number of different places, obviously: Mental Floss, the Gotham Center for New York City History, and the Fraunces Tavern Museum, which is a pretty cool one.
Conor: Well, thank you again, Doug. Great piece of trivia. And if we have any time left in the show...
Doug: And we actually do have a jam-packed show today. We’re going to be talking about our budget, we’re going to be talking about AI, we’re going to be talking about what it’s like to be a ninth grader in our district right now. But let’s get going first with budget talk. So, as we all know, we recently passed our two very, very important, much-needed levies: the Educational Programs and Operations levy and our Tech levy. So with those passages, you may have thought, "Okay, everything’s going pretty smoothly with our budget." That’s not exactly the case, and Doug’s going to tell us more about that.
Doug: Yeah, the levy money’s actually okay, but as we talked about as we were running those informational campaigns, one thing our community benefits from with the passage of a levy is called Local Effort Assistance. And for property-poor districts like Bethel, LEA is really important. It’s designed to help us keep up with property-rich districts, and we get more than $12 million in annual state funding that only triggers when local voters approve district levies. So, like we always say, thank you voters. But unfortunately—I should have said that in the past tense—because $12 million is what we used to get. The legislature has made some changes and is cutting back on the very assistance that we rely on. And it is going to be a really big deal. Here’s Christine Donnelly, our Chief Financial Officer.
Christine Donnelly: There is an impact into the future years as well, up to about almost $30 million over the next three years.
Doug: So that is obviously sobering news, but the good news is we’re not standing still, neither are the other districts in our area. But Doug, what can people do if they want to make their voices heard in this situation?
Conor: Well, one thing they can do is contact their legislators in Olympia. That’s who has changed the budget and that’s who needs to hear from you if this is something that you want to see changed back to the way it was. There is a website; there’s too many slashes and dots and all that kind of stuff to put it here, but if you go to bethelsd.org/news, you can find the story. Just look for the picture of the capitol in Olympia, click on that, and you’ll find the link right in there. Or if you know who your legislators are, send them an email, give them a call, light up the phones, because they need to hear from you.
Doug: Well, moving on to our next big topic today, we’re talking about what it’s like to be a ninth grader in our school district right now. And I know things are a lot different from when we grew up, Doug. I can picture you now in ninth grade: a long glorious mullet, black Van Halen shirt on, and I’m sure things were very easy for you back then. That’s not always the case today, though. Times are a lot different and our ninth graders have a lot more challenges than we did. Isn't that right, Doug?
Conor: Yeah, it sure is. You’re halfway right, and I’m going to let listeners figure out which part of the mullet or the Van Halen t-shirt was correct. But for freshmen today, they are facing a different set of challenges, and that’s why schools like Graham-Kapowsin High School have a Ninth Grade Success program that is really making changes, especially for freshmen like Ever. For her, the backbone of her high school experience was programs like the Study Support.
Ever: Study Support was very helpful. I was able to go in the morning because some kids aren’t able to go after school. So having these things during school are like very helpful for many students.
Doug: Absolutely. And Study Support is just one of the many, many programs that GK has put in place recently to help ninth graders thrive. Here’s Ever again.
Ever: There’s after-school ELA help, and math help, and science, and it’s like... it’s really helpful because you’re able to focus on that certain subject and you’re really able to talk to the teacher personally instead of doing it in front of a whole class, because I know some kids, they’re scared to talk in front of a whole class.
Doug: The goal of this Ninth Grade Success program is simple but essential: it’s to keep students on track to graduate. Principal Kevin Zamira said that ninth grade is the foundation for everything that follows.
Kevin Zamira: So it starts at ninth grade. You have to keep them on track. It’s easily the most pivotal year of their high school career.
Doug: So the really good news here is that appears to be working. The 2023-2024 school year, only 57.5% of freshmen were on track to graduate. That number has skyrocketed. By the second trimester of this school year, it’s reached 79%. Now, this Ninth Grade Success program is doing amazing things because of amazing people at the building. A team of 20 teachers at Graham-Kapowsin High School is tirelessly working to help students master the real-life skills that they’re going to need once they cross that graduation stage. These are skills like communication, confidence, and critical thinking. In fact, the same ones you’ll see highlighted in our district’s Portrait of a Graduate. Let’s hear from Ever again.
Ever: All these things, all these resources, have helped me prepare for 10th grade and all the grades going on to that.
Doug: So what I really love about this story is that Ever is kind of paying it forward. Not only is she taking advantage of these programs as a student herself, but she recently went over to Frontier Middle School to help eighth graders there prepare for their own leap into high school this coming fall. She and other freshmen showed them how to manage Gradebook and use all the other resources that are available to them. Here’s Ever one more time.
Ever: The teachers are very welcoming to if you need help in any class; you can just always talk to them. And my communication skills have really improved.
Conor: Well, I love the change this has made for Ever and a lot of other freshmen, and it’s because of the hard work of teachers and staff members at GK that care about the students and they’re willing to change and evolve to make sure students are headed in the right direction. And this program is evolving, too, and it’ll soon be moving on to the 10th, 11th, and 12th grades. So we’re going to wrap up this episode by talking AI and tech, which is on the forefront of everyone’s mind these days. And we are thrilled to be in a district where we’re able to offer students one-to-one iPad use—thank you voters for that tech levy support—but with all that technology comes some potential problems, and one of those is security.
Doug: It sure is. We live in a time where cyberattacks are not only frequent, they’re a multi-billion dollar industry in themselves. Our technology department isn’t just managing devices; they’re literally building a digital fortress so our students and staff can operate safely online. Here’s Chief Technology Officer Mike Christianson.
Mike Christianson: The weakest link—and this is why we’re focusing on people—is humans. So we could be Microsoft with as much money possible to build cybersecurity systems and the right person clicks on the right link and data is lost, right? So we have to try to close that loop on having people make good decisions with their internet usage and checking our email.
Doug: And it’s not just a kid problem—not at all. Adults can make mistakes too, which we both know because we were actually the victims of a little friendly phishing campaign that our sneaky tech department recently sent out. And so Doug, as you probably remember, we get these emails and they say, "Hey, you’re a pretty swell guy. Here’s a free Starbucks card. Go get yourself a coffee." Now, I don’t know about you, Doug. I like free coffee. It was awfully hard not to hit that link and collect it, but I didn’t, because I’m a genius.
Conor: Well, I’m proud of you. I will say it was extra devious that they sent that at 3:00 PM right when I needed an afternoon pick-me-up. That said, that’s one cool thing they’re doing. We also have new MDR systems that detect and shut down malicious activity the moment it appears, and we even hired a white-hat hacking company to try and break into our system and they couldn’t do it; the digital deadbolts were locked. So it wouldn’t be a tech talk if we didn’t talk about AI, artificial intelligence, and the question remains: how are we as a school district going to use AI now and in the future? Here’s Mike Christianson.
Mike Christianson: To AI or to not AI? And that’s probably the wrong question. It’s more of like, when to AI, not if to AI. We also know that AI can’t replace a teacher. It doesn’t replace good instruction. It’s not going to replace critical thinking, right? So we want a responsible, ethical, and intentional use of AI.
Doug: Mike also told us that staff will be getting more training on AI in the very near future.
Mike Christianson: We’re working with teaching and learning to develop a PD plan. It’ll be rolled out with guidance for students, staff, and teachers for summer training in August. We’re also going to be utilizing these late starts to continue that learning throughout the year and providing guidance on how we use it as a tool again. An intentional tool when it’s necessary to make sure that it’s enhancing instruction or learning. We feel it's an essential tool for folks to learn, our students to learn, but in a way that’s responsible, safe. We also have a deep concern for student data protection, and so we’re working within our Google for Education ecosystem, which we have signed contracts, data privacy... our data doesn’t get used for their learning model. So we’re really going to be focused on Gemini as our main tool for our folks here, so we can make sure we continue to keep everyone in a spot and we can stay out of the "any new tool that just pops up and please us the best" and as soon as you put your name in there, it's already sold your data to someone else.
Doug: Obviously, we live in a very complex digital world, and our tech team’s making decisions that will help ensure that technology remains a tool for growth, not distraction. And this work, as we’ve mentioned many, many times, is only possible thanks to our technology levy. So thank you once again, voters.
[Outro Music]
Doug: Well, thank you everyone for listening. As always, you can find more information about all these topics at bethelsd.org. And if you like what you heard, even if you didn’t, be sure and share the show with a friend. We’ll be back next week.

This week we witness the incredible impact of student leaders at Spanaway Lake High School. From launching inclusive Unified social events to honoring teachers with year-round appreciation events, they are redefining school spirit through service. Along with these inspiring stories, we also dive into a wild Useless Trivia segment featuring Air Force One and a 25-foot wave of molasses.
--TRANSCRIPT--
This transcript was automatically generated by Gemini from the original audio file. While it aims for high accuracy, it may contain minor discrepancies from the original audio.
Conor: Hey everybody. I’m Conor, that’s Doug and this is the Bethel School District presents podcast, the greatest podcast in the history of mankind. And we have a wonderful, wonderful show for you as per usual, but before we get into all that, it wouldn’t be our show if we didn’t give you a little useless trivia. So Doug I know you got a good one there, why don’t you get us started?
Doug: I do have a good one this week and I’ve been sitting on this for a couple of weeks kind of fleshing it out because the first piece of it I’ve had for a while and then I kind of dug into it with a little bit of vertical curiosity if you will. So this is Air Force One trivia and also some presidential trivia all wrapped into one and here we go.
Doug: So the very first president to fly ever, to fly to leave the earth is none other than Teddy "Bully" Roosevelt and he flew in 1910. The first president and I know all you historians out there are saying, "Well he wasn't president at the time, he was a former president Conor." So the first former president to fly in 1910, he flew a Wright Model B and that is like the Wright brothers plane, feet dangling, that kind of plane. Three minutes and 20 seconds above the earth. The bulliest experience he ever had.
Conor: Well that doesn’t actually surprise me. I think of Teddy as being a bit of a risk taker, a bit of an adventure junkie, so that actually tracks.
Doug: Absolutely, he lived that strenuous life and would it surprise you to know that the first president to fly when they were in office was also a Roosevelt? FDR, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the first to fly in office and one of his first flights to keep with that strenuous life was over a U-boat infested Atlantic Ocean to go and meet Winston Churchill at Casablanca. That's not a bad itinerary. Now his flight time was definitely a little bit longer. Four days Conor, of flying. That is 44 to 55 hours inside of a plane with at least three, it might have been four stops along the way for fuel.
Conor: Well that actually does surprise me. I would have thought that there would have been presidential flights long before that, but that just shows you how relatively new all this flight technology actually is.
Doug: It absolutely is and my last fun facts for you today are about Dwight D. Eisenhower. Ike has two presidential firsts when it comes to flying. He was the first president to have his pilot’s license and the first to fly under the call sign Air Force One. Conor, I’m going to need you to ask me why that is.
Conor: Now, why is that Doug?
Doug: Well done. So at this time the president flew under whatever flight number the Air Force called it. So he was actually flying on Air Force 8610 over, I think it was Richmond, Virginia, and Eastern Airlines 8610 was in the same airspace and the tower gave them a call and just said "8610, you’re cleared to land" and two of them responded. So almost a crash and after that, Air Force One became Air Force One so this would never happen again. And I have a lot of sources for all of this information. A few of them are the FAA historical archive, the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum, the New York Times, White House Historical Association, and Popular Mechanics.
Conor: Well that’s, those are all great Doug. And I gotta say, Air Force One has a much better ring to it than Air Force 8610 so I’m glad they went with that.
Doug: Absolutely. Well I think it’s time for your useless trivia sir, what do you got for us?
Conor: So my trivia is ground level this week. So Douglas, did you know that in 1919 a giant storage tank full of molasses burst open on the streets of Boston sending a 25-foot wave of molasses pouring through the streets at 35 miles per hour? The tragic event came to be known as the Great Molasses Flood or in some wittier circles, the Boston Molassacre.
Conor: Sadly, stop laughing Doug, 21 people were killed.
Doug: Oh man, you couldn't have led with that instead of the Molassacre? Geez.
Conor: So these poor 21 souls were killed, 150 more were injured. Residents actually claimed that on hot summer days even decades later, you could still smell syrup in the air. And my source on that one, which I can't believe I didn’t know this, this feels like it should be common knowledge, the Molassacre, is boston.gov, the city's website.
Doug: Man, that is a wild story. And you certainly have a penchant lately for bringing us stories of things exploding all over cities. Thinking back to the whale in Oregon that blew blubber chunks, your phrasing.
Conor: Raining blubber chunks. I’ve got a niche. Thank you for bringing that to our listeners' attention. I love the Molassacre, very sad that people were killed though, hate that part. And let’s turn to the business of the day Conor. I am forever seeing on Facebook the leadership students over at Spanaway Lake High School doing all kinds of cool stuff even towards the beginning of the school year as the weather was turning cold. They had hot cocoa out for the bus drivers, just all kinds of giving back and I love that about their group. And you actually headed over there intrepid reporter that you are to interview Anthony, Felicia, and Millicent more about what the leadership folks do.
Conor: So Anthony, you are the ASB president here at Spanaway Lake High School. So I figure you’re as good a person to ask as anyone. For people who aren’t familiar with leadership class, can you give us a little rundown on some of the things you all do here?
Anthony: Well, in leadership you kind of lead the entire school in a way by planning all of these school-oriented events. Anything like spirit days or fundraisers or anything that kind of involves the students, we’re the face behind that. If you ever want to be within a community, leadership is definitely a great place for you.
Conor: Well Felicia, leadership class involves a lot of behind-the-scenes grunt work. Setting up chairs before events, cleaning up after events. What makes you want to keep doing all this stuff and showing up for your peers?
Felicia: Well that part is definitely not pretty and not fun, but it’s definitely worth it when you see people who actually enjoy being here and kind of appreciate the work that we put into all of this because yes, sometimes the posters will get torn down or assemblies won’t go as well as we would like them to, but there’s always people who walk out of here thinking "that was really fun" and as long as we touch someone, that’s one more person who enjoys it here at Spanaway Lake.
Conor: That’s such a fantastic attitude and yeah, I’m sure a lot of times that work does go unnoticed, but not always. I’m sure people do notice it. Millicent, for those who have been listeners to the podcast, this will be a very familiar guest because she’s had her own podcast, she’s been a guest on our podcast. One of the great things you guys have been doing is called the gratitude cart. You wheel it around school giving staff members snacks and coffee. So where did that idea come from and why do you think it’s so important that you’re able to show staff members that you appreciate them?
Millicent: So essentially the gratitude cart was something that culminated through one of our squads in leadership. We have several different squads that focus on improving different aspects of the school and one of those is the faculty squad. And basically we just thought that teachers deserve to be recognized more than just the one week of the year during May which is teacher appreciation week. It should be something that’s year-round. So sprinkling in things like the gratitude cart or like staff lounge takeovers and other fun things like that show the staff that we’re thinking about them throughout the year consistently and not just once every single year.
Conor: And I know they absolutely appreciate it. I’ve heard that actually from staff members here, so another place where your work is not going unnoticed. So Anthony what out of all the events you guys have worked on your time here, what’s been the most fun thing that you’ve either worked on or planned or been a part of?
Anthony: My personal favorite event is one that I actually founded here at the school is the Fall Festival. Once every year we invite communities and small businesses, either student-owned or just owned from the community, a chance to come in and kind of cultivate an audience with others and a chance to raise money and just generally get out. A lot of our clubs will struggle with funding, so offering a lot of these students chances to see each other or third space and raise money at the same time is a great opportunity. And on top of that, you get to do a whole bunch of fun stuff. Last year I got pied I think 27 times in the space of two hours which was pretty fun.
Conor: Wow, that sounds incredible. It sounds like a fun event. Felicia, what about you? What’s been your favorite one?
Felicia: For me, I would say it’s been S-Lake's Got Talent. It’s our very own talent show that we host here where we have our very own students audition and show off their talents so that they could kind of flex on all of our students and show how cool they are. And I think that it’s really awesome and I was lucky enough to be able to co-host with Eliza this year. And it’s just really nice to see our students break out of their shell and kind of put themselves in the public eye even though usually it’s the popular people who are there, so they get a chance to be on stage, have a mic and just show off.
Conor: All right, what was the most memorable performance that day?
Felicia: The most memorable performance that day, hands down, was our very own local rapper here at Spanaway Lake, Inspector Goofy. He had his crew come onto the stage and it was just very hype and it felt very community. Our leadership also did a surprise sing-along and that just really touched my heart because it felt like we were really connecting with the audience this year.
Conor: Very cool and shout out Inspector Goofy, I’m sure he was on fire that day. Millicent, what’s been your favorite thing?
Millicent: Oh so personally my favorite event that we worked on is our Unified Prom. This is an event that started within leadership and has now expanded to be more staff-involved as well. And essentially for this event, what we do is we partner up with our unified students and give them the prom experience that some of them might not be able to get like we would. We decorate the commons, we bring food, we dress up nicely as we would for any other event and we just have a good time with them and honestly I found that that event was more fun than some of our own dances. And it also gives us a way to show our unified students that we see them and think about them in ways that other schools might not always. So yeah, I think it’s just overall just a really good event. It’s also good for making connections with the unified students since often times they’re off on one side of the building and we don’t really see them interacting with the general student population. So yeah, I think it was just really fun and yeah.
Conor: Yeah and I’ve definitely seen the photos from that from last year and it’s such a cool an event. It’s so cool that you guys are able to help with that. So we always like to ask seniors and and anyone in high school really what your plans are after school. So I’ve got three very talented students here, I’m sure you all have big plans. So I’m going to go around the horn again and ask you, Anthony start with you, what are your plans next year and what do you want to be when you grow up?
Anthony: Next year I plan on being in Seattle with a few roommates in an apartment. I’ll be going to Seattle Community College and transferring to UW Seattle. I’ll be double majoring in Business Analytics and Communication as well as minoring in Music Education to continue to let students know that they can express themselves through music. It’s something that I grew up with and I think it’s really important that other people can grow up with it as well. And in the future I want to be able to own a cafe where others can create these like connections and friendships and find each other through it while also just enjoying a third space because it’s not really common to have those anymore.
Conor: That’s a really great point, we’re severely lacking in third spaces here in this country. So that’s good on you for trying with that. Felicia, you’re only a junior here so you have a little more time, but I’m sure you’ve been thinking about it a little bit. What do you want to do when you get out of these hallowed halls of Spanaway Lake High School?
Felicia: Um, I’ve always grown up thinking that I would go into the medical field and follow in my sister’s footsteps, but as of recently I found interest in doing things that kind of associate with cosmetology. So I’ve enjoyed doing other people’s hair, cutting my own hair, I don’t know if you guys know, but I’ve also done our president’s hair most recently and I’ve also learned to do my own nails. And once I get out of here I’m hoping that I could start up a little mini business on the side so that I could make some money while also trying to become a CNA.
Conor: Nice, that’s those are all great plans. Millicent, we’ve talked a little bit about what you want to do, but remind our audience what your plans are for after high school.
Millicent: Uh yeah, I plan to attend WSU Pullman and study multimedia journalism. Um, I haven’t exactly decided what I want to pursue a minor in, but I’m deciding between political science and creative writing because journalism is something that’s important to me and I believe that the people deserve to be informed about what’s going on in the world, but to have it done so in a way that is factual and transparent and yeah.
Conor: Love it. Well those are all amazing plans. Well thank you all for joining us and we appreciate having you on the show.
Leadership Students: Thank you.
Doug: Well thanks again to Conor for the fieldwork and especially to Anthony, Felicia and Millicent for chatting with us today. We’re going to be back next week with another great show. Thanks for listening.

This week, we discover the hidden strengths of our multilingual students as we explore how speaking multiple languages builds powerful neural pathways for academic success. We discuss how our district supports over 76 languages and celebrates the cultural diversity each student brings from home. We also get the details on our upcoming Family Fun Night at Spanaway Lake High School, and we tackle some useless animal trivia, from bird to buffalo! 
--TRANSCRIPT--
Conor: Hey everybody, I'm Conor, that's Doug, and this is the Bethel School District presents podcast, the greatest podcast ever invented, bar none. And as usual, we have a fantastic show for you. We're talking all things languages today, and Doug, I'm going to kick it over to you for useless trivia because I know you got a banger.
Doug: I've got a really fun one, and I know you have one that's about language. So we'll get mine out of the way first. I was actually just with my parents at Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge, one of my favorite places on this earth. A wonderful place to take a walk. And if you're a birder, photographer, you just like looking at birds, you like looking at nature, it's a great place to go. When we were there we did see a great blue heron which is my favorite bird, so seeing my favorite bird in my favorite place was really fun. And it got me thinking about their neck, because they have this gigantic neck, they curve it into this S shape when they're flying which is cool, and we got to watch one hunt pretty close up. And they stand very still in the water and then their neck shoots out like a spear gun. And I was wondering if there was anything special about their neck. So Conor, on this very podcast, and I'm getting to my useless trivia, stop pointing at your watch. One of our useless trivia was before was how giraffes and humans have the same number of neck vertebrae. It's just a mammalian rule. So great blue heron ignores those rules, of course, because they're a bird. They have twenty neck vertebrae. And that allows them to tuck their neck into that signature S shape when they're flying. But their real secret is their sixth vertebra. It's specially elongated and hinged so it acts like a cocked spring. So that allows the heron when it's fishing, it doesn't just reach out, it launches its head forward like a harpoon at speeds the human eye can barely track. And that my friend, is my useless trivia for today.
Conor: That is useless. I'm just going to leave it there.
Doug: My sources are the Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, Veterinary Information Network, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and the Journal of Zoology. Beat that, sir.
Conor: Okay, well I will do my best. And as I mentioned we are talking languages this week, so I figured I'd get a little useless trivia in there as well. So Douglas, did you know that the sentence "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" is actually grammatically correct?
Doug: I felt like I needed to smack you on the head there like a skipping turntable. I did not know that. That makes no sense.
Conor: Okay, well it makes sense, actually, sir, because it uses buffalo as a place, a noun, and a verb. So Buffalo with a capital B is the city of Buffalo in New York. buffalo lowercase, the noun, is an animal like bison. And buffalo also lowercase is a verb, to bully, to confuse, to intimidate. So bison from Buffalo that are bullied by other bison from Buffalo also bully bison from Buffalo. Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.
Doug: I think when we're done we're going to have to go to the old chalkboard and diagram this sentence. You got a source on this piece of weirdness?
Conor: It wouldn't be me if I didn't have an air-tight source, and my source this week is Dr. William Billy J. Rappaport. And he is a professor of language at University of, you guessed it, Buffalo.
Doug: Well that is a fantastic, really great piece of trivia, fantastic source also, I love the extra buffalo there on the end. And our very special guest joining us in studio is Carla Louck, secondary MLE TOSA. And Carla, before we go any farther, we're going to have to define what that actually means. TOSA, as regular listeners know, is Teachers On Special Assignment, and MLE, not Major League Eating, Conor, it is Multi-Lingual Education. So Carla, MLE used to be ELL, used to be ESL, English as a Second Language, which a lot of people might be more familiar with. But we're talking about MLE. Who are these students?
Carla Louck: So multilingual students are students who are speaking more than one language. They come to our schools and some of them have been speaking both English and another language at home and so sometimes they're arriving right at kindergarten and they just have more than one language spoken at home. Traditionally we think about multilingual learners coming from other countries, but actually more than, well probably about 40% of our multilingual students are born right here. They have homes that speak more than one language, so they arrive with that skill. And because they do have more than one language, sometimes one language can be more predominant than the other. So in our program a priority is learning the academic side of English, especially if the previous experience they've had has been more conversational English.
Doug: Right. Yeah, and I think that'd be really important especially just being in school talking to friends in English is very different than learning some math terms in English and things like that. That's not something that would just float around the home, even in one that you know, maybe spoke Spanish primarily and a little bit of English, they might not be talking about fractions and things like that.
Carla Louck: Mm-hmm. Yep. One thing though, because that can be complicated, one thing that they have found with our multilingual learners outside of just in education is that when you are having to think in more than one language and when our students are coming and they're they maybe have a more predominant home language than English, they're hearing instruction in English, their brains are constantly like making those neural pathways. And so what happens is multilingual students just have these really strong pathways for learning. Also, side note, sometimes those alternate pathways help in other areas, so for example, they have found sometimes that people who have Alzheimer's, they might have the markers of it but they don't have the symptoms because their brains have all these different ways that they access information. So multilingualism in general is just such a strong skill to have to be able to think and talk in more than one language has a lot of great benefits. I love that our school district has a dual language program so that you know, we really thinking about how that can impact student learning. Also in our other buildings that do not have that program we do have the opportunity to have diverse learners who speak more than one language.
Doug: Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that because we recently did a video about our dual language program and Principal Arturo Gonzalez told us about that study and the impact on dementia later in life of just being bilingual. That's that's really amazing. So speaking of multilingual and knowing lots of languages, a little birdie told us that you have a pretty impressive history of language, not only in your academic career, which I want to hear about, but also prior to that you made up your own languages as a kid. Tell us about that.
Carla Louck: I did. I thought everyone did. Did you not make up your own languages as a kid?
Doug: I didn't do that. I had a hard enough time with English.
Carla Louck: I don't know, I just would decide that some as I was playing, I don't know, I'm very verbal, would just decide that something had a different name and I'd just make up my own language for it, make up my own words and then I would of course try to say these words to my mom who didn't exactly understand the language that I had made up in my head. Yeah, from a young age I was always fascinated with other languages.
Doug: And do you remember any of your made up words?
Carla Louck: Oh, I wish I did.
Doug: Should have wrote those down. I love that. I just have a visual of these notebooks full of this, it says dictionary on the front in crayon and that's fantastic. Well as you headed on to high school, most of us had to learn language, I took a couple years of Spanish. You took more than a couple years of a couple different things. Tell us about that.
Carla Louck: I did. Initially Spanish was the language I wanted to learn. However, I did ninth grade at the junior high and they did not offer Spanish, they offered French so I'm like okay well I'll try French for a year and switch when I move to the high school. I really liked learning French. It was it was fun. So year two I was in French and Spanish, and then my geometry teacher was like "you're taking two languages, I teach Japanese, you should add that one on". So I ended up with three years of French, three years of Spanish and two years of Japanese. So eight years of foreign language in high school.
Conor: And so how much of that have you been able to retain over the years?
Carla Louck: Mostly Spanish, partly because I lived in the Yakima Valley and I utilized that language the most. I still, okay, I wish I was completely like qualify as bilingual in Spanish, but I'm still working on it. Last summer I went to Costa Rica for three weeks. Two weeks I was in a Spanish immersion program for two reasons. One, I would love to improve my Spanish skills. I'm really good at understanding, like most multilingual learners, we can hear a lot, I can read pretty well in Spanish and comprehend, speaking is always an issue. The other part is that because I'm an MLE TOSA, I'm working with multilingual learners and I really wanted to understand what it was like to be completely in an immersion program where everything being taught was in Spanish with no translations, just learn because I just really wanted to experience what that felt like as a student as I support teachers and students in that program here.
Conor: And we we are in a diverse district and a district where we have students speaking a whole lot of languages. Off the top of your head do you know how many languages are spoken in our district?
Carla Louck: I think 76.
Conor: Isn't that incredible?
Doug: 76.
Conor: I love that, I love that diversity. And one of the ways we celebrate all those languages and all those cultures is our annual Family Fun Night. And I go to this event every year, not just because I'm getting paid to be there but because it's a lot of fun actually. It's believe it or not the third largest event that our district hosts every year. This is a huge event, widely attended. Can you tell the people who maybe haven't been there what they could expect from Family Fun Night?
Carla Louck: My favorite part of the evening though, because we have performances that showcase the various cultures and languages that we have represented in our district. We had a Filipino dance troupe that came in and watched and so I can also say it was multi-generational. So watching our various cultures connect like across cultures and across age groups, and seeing them connect, so the performers were performing and then they came back and they were hanging out and talking and talking about collaborating and we like just watching how everyone is connecting across cultures was like my most favorite part of the night. And then okay so the whole night itself, we have booths from communities resources, we also have a lot of heritage booths from the various high schools. We have performances from a lot of our heritage clubs here within our district, for example Asian American Club, we also have Liberty had their step team perform. Just various grade levels, elementary, middle school, high school performances along with a few outside of our Bethel well part of our Bethel community but not part of our schools. We have food, Karma has been amazing and a big donor to our evening, they have provided food every year for us and they'll be here again this year. So that's pretty awesome. Activities for kids, make and takes that represent the various cultures that are here. Overall it's just a super fun night and as a former secondary teacher, it's I guess my push was to get some more of our secondary schools and students involved and last year it was really great just to see students volunteering as well as participating and you know, I love a bit of karaoke, we had a karaoke booth, so we had a lot of students performing there songs that I would say are pop songs, also songs that represent their own culture and language too. It was pretty cool to walk down the hallway and hear the different types of music that kids were performing. So yeah, overall it was just such a fun night. There's always lots of things that we plan and then unexpected things that happen like someone bringing their guitar and serenading us during our dinner, awesome GK student who's very talented. He started taking requests as well. So it is May 1st at Spanaway Lake High School from 5:30 to 7:30.
Conor: Yeah, you really don't want to miss it. The name is very befitting of the event, it is fun, it is family, and it is at night.
Doug: Well thank you once again to Carla Louck, our secondary MLE TOSA for joining us this week and we hope to see everybody at Family Fun Night, May 1st at Spanaway Lake High School. And we'll be back next week with another great show.

This week we tackle the tough question of, "What happens after graduation?" We dive into the data, including a statistic that shows that 72% of future jobs will require more education than just a high school diploma. We learn why 7th grade is a pivotal time for students, and hear how our district is building student maturity, confidence, and giving them the skills they need to pursue any path they choose.
--TRANSCRIPT--
Doug: Hey everyone, I'm Doug. That's Conor. And you're listening to the greatest school district podcast of all time. That's right, the Bethel School District Presents podcast is back from spring break. We are suntanned and rested and ready to go, Conor. We have a great show ahead. We're going to be talking about post-graduation plans for our seniors and what that means for our staff—what work goes in behind the scenes to make sure seniors are ready for their futures once they cross that graduation stage. But before we get there, Conor, as you like to say, and I think this is trademarked, you know how we do it. It's time for useless trivia. Hit us up.
Conor: It is indeed, and I’ve got a good one to bring us back from the break in case everyone was Jonesing for their useless trivia. So Douglas, did you know the world's longest officially released song is called "The Rise and Fall of Bossanova" by a group called PC3 and it is over 13 hours long? And before you chime in there with your witty bon mots, I'm going to add a little bonus and that the shortest song ever recorded is called "You Suffer" by Napalm Death, which comes in at just 1.316 seconds long.
Doug: I got nothing. That's amazing. I really question the definition of the word "song" with a 13-hour whatever that is.
Conor: Or a one-second—that's really not much of a song either.
Doug: I suppose that's true, but I'd more likely listen to the one-second than the 13-hour. Not too bad, I like that useless trivia. And Conor, you're not going to beat mine because mine was pretty darn good. But let's hear what you got. Well, I'm definitely not because mine actually has to do with today's topic, so it is—
Conor: Boring.
Doug: I'll take it, but Conor, did you know in the early 1900s, graduating high school wasn't just about walking across the stage? It was a public performance, and my sources before I even say this: Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of American History, and the New York Public Library Digital Collections—some heavy hitters. They told me that every single graduating senior was required to stand on stage and deliver an original oration or essay to the public.
Conor: Well, that is fascinating. I didn't know that and I'm glad they did away with that. I don't think I would have done well. And imagine how long you and I both cover graduation ceremonies—just reading the names, imagine how long that ceremony would take.
Doug: Well, back in this day, there were kind of like 12 graduating seniors so it was probably still a lengthy event, but it was definitely more manageable if everybody was given a speech. Some ceremonies were even structured like variety shows, so it was common to have a class prophet who predicted people's futures, a class historian, and a class poet. And Conor, I believe you would have been the class poet over there in Masula.
Conor: And I think you would have been a class clown. Zing.
Doug: Well, our school board has been holding public study sessions this year on a variety of topics and that includes the work of our behavior task force, math achievement, student safety of course, our levies, and right before spring break they held another one, and this was on college and career readiness.
Conor: Yeah, students, teachers, administrators, they all engage in conversation with the school board about this topic and they covered a ton of ground actually. They talked about why post-secondary pathways matter for Bethel students and the community, where our students are today in terms of readiness and engagement, and what Bethel schools are doing to expand opportunities after graduation.
Doug: So with all that in mind, Deputy Superintendent Dr. David Hammond said the vision for him was clear, even though it sounded a little like a greeting card.
Dr. David Hammond: Part of the vision I've been working with this over the last two days to try to figure out how to say this without sounding like a Hallmark card, but there's really no way to do it. So, graduation is an end and it's also a beginning. So there's your Hallmark card. It's an end for us in that the students leave, but it's a beginning for our students. But in the last five years, it hasn't been an end for the district. We've been able to gather more information, more data about students and how they're doing beyond and using that data to inform what we're doing in the schoolhouse while they're with us.
Doug: Now we're actually tracking and learning about our students after they leave Bethel, and we're seeing where we can replicate that success and uncover things that we might need to change.
Conor: Now, we have strong graduation rates here in Bethel—over 90%—but we don't have strong numbers when it comes to meaningful post-secondary learning. So our goal needs to be focused on making sure our graduates have the tools they need to leave school with confidence and are ready for whatever road lies ahead.
Doug: Absolutely, and School Board Director Terrence Mayers agreed with that.
Terrence Mayers: Did we give you what you needed while you were here so that when you're not here you're capable of pursuing whatever it is that you want to pursue or have the ability to adjust when things don't work your way, when life changes? Did you get enough skills from us so that you can make those decisions? I guess that's from my perspective, that's what I want.
Doug: After graduation, students can go in a lot of different directions, either enrolling in a two or four-year college or university, enlisting in the military, getting apprenticeships, or employment right out of high school.
Conor: And our Superintendent Brian Lowney said it's that last one—employment—that he's thought a lot about.
Brian Lowney: Employed for me, I've had to kind of change my thinking on that. It's employed in a way where there's room to grow in the career that they're moving. So that they're not bottomed out in a way that they won't have a family earning wage. You have to see a future in what you're employed in because going straight to work has to mean you're on a path.
Doug: School Board Director Roseanna Camacho said that path can lead anywhere and she wants the world to be wide open with opportunities for each and every graduate.
Roseanna Camacho: Even though we come from a small town in Washington, that they can go anywhere in the country and anywhere in the world and be who they want to be. That there are opportunities that they're not afraid to go out and actually grasp those things and give it their best. Just knowing that no matter what it is that they decide to do, whether it is enlisting in the military, going out into the workforce and beginning that world, or going on to further education, you're not pigeonholed. You don't have to do it in a specific order and that it doesn't have to end with just one of those things. There are people who become policemen, then go to college and become lawyers, and then decide, you know, I'm going to be a business owner—that there's not a specific order and there's not any one that trumps the other and that you can do anything that you want to do and that they have the confidence not to be afraid to do so.
Doug: So now let's take a look at some data, and Matt Yarkosky, our Executive Director of Student Engagement and Safety, has a key piece from a recent study done about the very topic.
Matt Yarkosky: We looked at a 2023 study from Georgetown and they forecasted by 2031, so which is five years from now, which is our current seventh graders, they're the class of 2031, that 72% of jobs available will require some sort of post-secondary education. So whether it's college, a trade school, apprenticeship, some sort of post-secondary education.
Doug: Let's reiterate that number. 72% of jobs by 2031 will require some form of education after graduation. Now that can be military, college, university, vocational or trade school, or apprenticeship.
Conor: 2031. So that means we're talking about our seventh graders right now. They'll be in high school before we know it. So what responsibility does this put on us as a district?
Doug: That's a great question, and the board weighed in on it. Board President Marcus Young kicked that off.
Marcus Young: What I envision is that we have given our students so much confidence within themselves that if they had to go and work for three years, they are not intimidated to go back to school. My era coming up, if you didn't go to school right after high school, then you almost felt like there was no way to go back because you lost all of these skills, this book, the routine, all of that. And then you end up what, 5-10 years later going back and you're like, oh it wasn't that bad, right? So when I say that we have given them the confidence, it's if I gotta work and help out the family for five years and then I gotta go back to school, I know I can handle it because I had the routines down, I had the encouragement from my teachers and from the counselors and the understanding that the decision that I had to make coming out of high school was not one that ruined my life. And so we're so confident that I've given you everything. It's a toolbox and you don't have to use a butter knife when you need a flathead. You have that flathead in there. You might not know what you're going to use it for, but when it's time to use it, hey, I got something that'll work for that.
Conor: Absolutely love that butter knife analogy. Doug, I thought of you when he said that because I've seen your toolbox and it's a grocery bag filled with a hammer, maybe a half-eaten pretzel, a broken scissor half, flashlights, jelly beans—it's a mess.
Doug: It is, and the jelly beans I keep in the flashlight for safekeeping. Yes, I am a very mature adult, and maturity is actually a quality that Board Director John Manning is looking for us to instill in our grads.
John Manning: I'd like to be able to see that in addition to the confidence and the tools that we've given them some level of maturity to be able to fall back and say, okay my first goal is unattainable, I can't do that, so what else can I do? But you have to be able to fall back and adapt and be—have that maturity to know I haven't failed, it just isn't available at this time. And I'd like to have them see that, recognize it, and accept it.
Conor: So we've got maturity, tools, and confidence. What else we need?
Doug: Director Marcus Young had another one, and it's one that we've talked about here on the podcast before, especially when it comes to safety and security, and that is relationships. It's getting to know each and every student.
Marcus Young: Developing relationships with them early so that we can get them thinking about what next looks like. That it's not too early at seventh grade to be thinking about what next is.
Conor: Building those relationships is key, and Spanaway High School senior Autumn Humbert shared her views on why.
Autumn Humbert: Most of our students, they don't feel that sense of accomplishment because they don't have the relationship with either the higher-ups or the teachers or have that sense of knowledge that they can push forward or that they can do greater things. So that accountability on the higher-ups of people thinking of what to do next starts with that relationship.
Doug: So here's a sobering number. Our students who are enrolled in a two or four-year college the first year after graduating high school—the number is only 45% of our grads, and that is lower than the state average.
Conor: And that number is just enrolled in year one. It doesn't mean 45% are completing college and going on to well-paying jobs. And if that's 45%, that means we don't know what 55% of those kids are doing. Of course, there are some military enlistments and apprenticeships, but not 55% worth.
Doug: Good points, but let's remember there is nothing wrong with graduating and going to work.
Conor: Exactly, and Director Manning agreed with that point.
John Manning: I'm a trade school kind of person. I've been around the world a little bit and I've seen that and the United States is sadly lacking in that perspective. It is okay to get out of high school and go to work for Boeing or Toray Composites or any other place that you can find a job that you're happy. That is not a failure. There are people, I think everybody here would agree, who don't want to go or would not succeed in higher education. It's just not for them. And I think that's what we have to recognize and be able to offer paths and direction and support for those individuals.
Doug: Brian Lowney is passionate about this topic and he said even if a graduate doesn't see college in their future, that doesn't mean we don't need to push them in high school to try hard classes.
Brian Lowney: Every piece of data out there right now shows that the skills that it takes to be successful taking an academic course load are the same skills they're going to need in an apprenticeship to advance and become a journeyman. Are the same skills that kiddo at the shop at JBLM is going to need to go beyond private and work in the shop to become advanced in rank.
Doug: Now there's a lot of work going on in our high schools and our middle schools to push more on this, to get kids ready for great careers. Absolutely, and we're building student success skills and challenging them to increase their academic intensity and even using the high school and beyond plan for career exploration. And believe it or not, that begins in seventh grade and it can change with the student as their interest change over time.
Conor: That's awesome because we all know this isn't a one-size-fits-all type of deal. Now let's get back to Autumn, if you remember she's the senior from Spanaway High School. She spoke earlier about Running Start and she said Bethel really stands out when you look at other districts.
Autumn Humbert: For my cousins and my family, they live in the East Coast. They don't have the other opportunities that we have. I mention Running Start—what's that? I mention skill center—what's that? What do you mean you have this extra opportunity of going to college early? What's that, you know? So you guys especially listening to what we have to say and you guys making that change then our students are making more of those numbers and more of those rates come up than what we've seen probably since Bethel School District has even started.
Doug: I really love Autumn's perspective on this, and to wrap things up we're going to hear again from Director Roseanna Camacho. She kind of closed out the study session talking about what she saw as the critical piece in all of this.
Roseanna Camacho: Whenever I see interviews of adults being asked: what got you to where you are today? What was that spark? You always hear it go back to a teacher. Someone in third grade, kindergarten, high school that just really understood them, really connected with them on a different level that maybe no other adult person in their life had. And that they also have the tools and they have the support and they have everything that they need to make sure that we achieve the things that we want to as far as our vision is for our school district. And so I just wanted to circle back to that and thank our educators and everyone that is a part of this system.
Doug: Well, to echo Director Roseanna Camacho, thank you to our educators, thank you to our teachers, and thank you to our listeners. We'll be back next week with another great show.

As Spring Break approaches, we sit down with our district's three Daffodil Princesses to hear about their favorite teachers, plans for the future, and much more! We also feature one of our most surprising Useless Trivia segments to date! 
--TRANSCRIPT--
Conor: Hey everybody, I’m Conor. That’s Doug. And this is the Bethel School District Presents podcast. And as usual, we have a fantastic show for you. I will be our intrepid reporter going to all three of our comprehensive high schools to speak with this year’s amazing Daffodil Princesses. But before that, Doug, it wouldn’t be our show if we didn’t kick things off with a little bit of useless trivia. You look like you got a good one primed up. What do you got?
Doug: I did find something very useless but very interesting. This is from Business Insider. For a brief moment in 1989, PepsiCo, Pepsi, possessed one of the largest military naval fleets in the entire world.
Conor: Why would they have this and how did they procure it?
Doug: These are fantastic questions. This is the 80s, you know Russia’s involved. So, in 1989, the USSR traded Pepsi a fleet of, get this, 17 submarines, a cruiser, a frigate, and a destroyer just to keep Pepsi flowing into Russia.
Conor: Wow.
Doug: So this collection of—my math is over 20 vessels—technically gave Pepsi the sixth largest navy in the world at the time before they sold the fleet for scrap value.
Conor: So all that and they still couldn’t overtake Coca-Cola. Wow, that’s—yeah. It was a rough decade for Pepsi. Conor, I challenge you to beat my useless trivia.
Conor: Well, I won’t because that’s an all-timer. But mine’s not bad either. So Doug, did you know that in 1970, the government in Oregon decided to remove a whale from the beach using dynamite?
Doug: I did not know this. This—sounds like it would have made the news, I bet.
Conor: I’m sure it did make the news. But so here’s the background. A 45-foot sperm whale carcass washed up in Florence, Oregon, and to get rid of it, the highway division used a half a ton of dynamite. So their rationale was, bizarrely, that the whale would just kind of disintegrate into the ether. And in fact, it didn’t. And in fact, it just blew blubber chunks—
Doug: Oh my god.
Conor: —raining down onto passersby. Blubber chunks everywhere, folks.
Doug: This is—such a disturbing image.
Conor: To make it even more disturbing—
Doug: It gets worse.
Conor: Those thunderous chunks of flying blubber actually destroyed parked cars up to a half mile away. My source on that is the Oregon Department of Transportation.
Doug: Well, I love that piece of trivia. That is also an all-timer. We’re starting out real strong here. Well, Conor, I look forward to this particular show every single year. You venture out to all of our comprehensive high schools, find the Daffodil Princesses, and find out more about them. And that’s really awesome. I love that we put this show up before the Daffodil Parade in Puyallup. So, let’s kick things off with your visit to Spanaway Lake High School and Princess Zoey.
Conor: So Zoey, what made you want to become a Daffodil Princess?
Zoey: Something that made me want to become a Daffodil Princess is in elementary school I always saw the Daffodil Princesses come, and it just seemed like such a fun thing to be a part of. And I’ve had past princesses as friends and they tell me all about the scholarship program and how it’s really helped them after their high school plans. So yeah.
Conor: It’s definitely an awesome program. And who at this school or any of the schools you’ve attended along the way has inspired you?
Zoey: I would say specifically at Spanaway Lake, Miss Bonner. She was the past coordinator for princesses. She definitely helped push me to be able to do this. And then my two advisors, they were also so, so helpful in the whole process of encouraging me and making me stay strong. But outside of this, Princess Clara from Graham-Kapowsin High School really helped me with knowing what to do and what to say and how—what to expect from every day.
Conor: That’s awesome to get help from someone who’s been there. What’s your favorite thing about Spanaway Lake High School?
Zoey: I would say the culture and just overall how diverse our school is. It really helps everybody come together and have a real sense of community, which I think the Daffodil Festival is all about.
Conor: Very cool. And what are your post-graduation plans?
Zoey: After graduation, I plan on attending Boise State University and I’ll be in the honors program on a four-year scholarship. And I’ll be pursuing early elementary education.
Conor: Wow, that’s awesome and congratulations. So, we’re moving on to the lightning round. What is your least favorite food?
Zoey: Hmm. I really, really dislike raw tomatoes. They’re disgusting. Other than that, I would just say, yeah, anything with raw tomatoes or raw onions is just not for me.
Conor: Tomatoes, that’s a take. I haven’t heard that one. Any pets?
Zoey: No, I used to have two dogs, but then when I moved to Spanaway we had to get rid of them. So no pets.
Conor: All right. What books, if any, are you reading right now?
Zoey: I’m not reading any books, but as far as like media in general, I’m into Grey’s Anatomy right now.
Conor: Fantastic. What is your dream spring break travel destination?
Zoey: Greece, completely—like all the way. I love Italy and Greece and everything about it.
Conor: Yeah, those do look amazing. Okay, what YouTube or podcast series are you watching or listening to?
Zoey: Hmm. I don’t really listen to podcasts or anything. As far as like music, I listen to a lot of like Harry Styles or SZA, just stuff like that, but not really podcasts.
Conor: Except for the Bethel School District Presents podcast.
Zoey: Oh, of course, of course, totally.
Conor: I knew you were forgetting that one. What’s one thing that is definitely on your bucket list?
Zoey: Just to travel the world. I’ve already been to Europe, and so traveling as much as I can is the biggest thing for me and getting to experience those types of experiences.
Conor: Absolutely. So, here’s the last one. If you had to sing karaoke in front of the entire school, what song would you pick?
Zoey: Oh, easy question. Super Bass by Nicki Minaj. That’s my go-to karaoke song.
Conor: Very bold. I love it. Well, thank you Zoey and good luck in the future.
Zoey: Thank you.
Doug: Well done, Conor. I love the addition of asking them those lightning round questions. I think you and I should participate.
Conor: Yeah, that was fun, right? So let me hit you with the lightning round since I’m the lightning master apparently. So Doug, what’s your least favorite food?
Doug: I don’t like this question because there’s not a food I’ve met that I don’t like. Brussels sprouts used to be on the list, but I’ve had them recently—love them, especially when they’re roasted.
Conor: Do you have any pets? I know you do. Tell us about your pets, I should say.
Doug: I do. Pancake the wonder dog. Also have Louie the cat and Meep the cat.
Conor: What book are you reading right now?
Doug: I’m reading Winston Churchill in 100 Objects. Really cool book that shows artifacts and has a story that goes along and the whole thing is told in the progression of his birth to his death.
Conor: Sounds fascinating. What is your dream spring break travel destination?
Doug: I would go to Ireland right now if you let me.
Conor: What TV, YouTube, podcast series are you watching or listening to?
Doug: Oh man, and you’ve heard me talk about this and I can’t get into it right now on this podcast because there’s not enough time, but my wife and I are watching Cheers for the first time. Man, it is not great.
Conor: It didn’t age well, Doug said.
Doug: But we’re in season five and there’s still more to go.
Conor: What’s one thing left on your bucket list?
Doug: One thing left on my bucket list is actually flying in a seaplane and flying in a hot air balloon. Two things I’ve never done.
Conor: And if you had to sing karaoke in front of everyone at the entire admin retreat this summer, what song would you pick?
Doug: If I could bring my wife along, we do a dynamite version of Love Shack.
Conor: And I have heard that version several times actually, and I gotta say, it’s better than the original.
Doug: Well, thank you, that’s—that’s very kind. Bethel High School is up next with Princess Mya. Conor, take us away.
Conor: So Mya, what made you want to become a Daffodil Princess?
Mya: That’s a really good question. I would say just being around Pierce County. I’ve been a part of the Bethel School District my entire life, so it’s just been super great to represent my high school and the Bethel School District as a whole as a Daffodil Princess.
Conor: Fantastic. And has there been a teacher or teachers along the way, whether here at Bethel High or anywhere in your scholastic career, who’s been especially inspiring for you?
Mya: Yeah, I would definitely say my science teacher, Miss Jennifer Morrison. She is just absolutely amazing and her science program is what truly has really led my future in healthcare.
Conor: Great shoutout, Miss Morrison. What’s your favorite thing about Bethel High School?
Mya: I really like just the community that we’ve made at Bethel. I feel like it’s just a really tight-knit community and everybody’s really friendly with one another and it’s just a great school to be a part of.
Conor: Absolutely, I can attest to that. And what are you going to do after you graduate? You got any big plans?
Mya: I do. So, I will be graduating high school with my medical assistant certification through my schooling at the Pierce County Skill Center. So, I will be working as a medical assistant while attending school part-time to pursue nursing.
Conor: That is really, really cool. We’re going to move on to our favorite part, lightning round. So Mya, what is your least favorite food?
Mya: I don’t like meatloaf.
Conor: Do you have any pets?
Mya: I do. I have two dogs, Rocky and Reese.
Conor: Awesome. And what book are you reading right now?
Mya: Uh—I’m not a very great reader, but the last book I read was probably Harry Potter around Christmas time.
Conor: You can’t beat that, it’s a classic. Okay, what’s your dream spring break travel destination?
Mya: Probably the Mall of America in Minnesota because I love shopping and I love giant malls.
Conor: Very cool. You got both covered there. What TV show, YouTube show, podcast series are you watching right now?
Mya: I’m watching the MrBeast Beast Games right now and it’s actually very interesting.
Conor: All right. What’s one thing on your bucket list that you want to get accomplished?
Mya: I think I would just like to be able to talk to more people and just be around a more diverse demographic of people.
Conor: Very cool. Okay, this is a tough one. If you had to sing karaoke in front of the entire school, what song you going to pick?
Mya: I would sing Fight Song by Rachel Platten. I think that’s her last name. I don’t know, I just used to sing that a lot when I was little and I feel like that’s the song I would be least likely to mess up.
Conor: Awesome Mya, well good luck in the future.
Mya: Thank you so much.
Doug: Well, that was awesome. Love hearing from Princess Mya. And Conor, you’re up for the lightning round. Let’s go. What is your least favorite food?
Conor: I might have mentioned this before. I just don’t like the texture of mushrooms.
Doug: I think that’s fair. Do you have any pets?
Conor: Not at the moment. RIP my boy Cooper.
Doug: We loved Cooper. What book are you reading right now?
Conor: I am reading a fascinating book called Poems of the Night by Jorge Luis Borges.
Doug: What is your dream spring break travel destination?
Conor: I’m going with Ireland. I’m leaving right now if you say it’s okay, and you’re my boss, so this is binding.
Doug: Then I will remain silent on the issue, though it does sound like a great idea. What TV, YouTube, podcast series are you watching right now?
Conor: It’s not a series, but I am watching March Madness NCAA basketball.
Doug: What is one thing left on your bucket list?
Conor: Well, thankfully I’ve been able to knock off a lot of things on my bucket list already, but one thing I haven’t done yet that I would love to do is drive across the country and see all of this beautiful country of ours.
Doug: All right, final question. If you had to sing karaoke in front of a large group of folks that you personally know and work with, what song would you sing?
Conor: As it happens, I have done that, and the song I did sing to much acclaim was Wicked Game by Chris Isaak.
Doug: Our final princess today is Abby over at Graham-Kapowsin High School. Conor, take it away.
Conor: So Abby, what made you want to become a Daffodil Princess?
Abby: Well, you know, there were a lot of different things that made me want to become the Daffodil Princess, but mainly, I am a Running Start student, and so as a Running Start student I don’t get to be at my school as much and so it’s harder to connect with my community. So Daffodil was kind of my way of reconnecting and getting back involved with my community.
Conor: Has there been a teacher at this school or any of the schools you’ve gone to that has especially inspired you in your journey?
Abby: Um, definitely. I would say there has been a lot. I would say specifically Miss Fuller, Mr. Ledbetter, and Miss Sinnis from Liberty.
Conor: Nice, shoutout to those guys. What’s your favorite thing about this school?
Abby: I love our diversity here. A lot of the times GK tends to get kids from all around the area, not just from specific middle schools. So, I love that we get a bunch of different people here.
Conor: Nice. And what are your plans after graduation?
Abby: I would like to go study at a four-year university somewhere preferably out of Washington, and then I hope to study abroad for a couple of years.
Conor: So, this is lightning round, so this is—this is when it gets real. All right Abby, what’s your least favorite food?
Abby: I don’t know if I have one. I think maybe like anchovies?
Conor: Any pets?
Abby: I have two cats, Ichigo and Yuzu.
Conor: What book are you reading right now?
Abby: The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue.
Conor: What is your dream spring break travel destination?
Abby: Thailand.
Conor: What TV show, YouTube show, podcast series are you watching or listening to right now?
Abby: Recently, I have been watching New Girl.
Conor: What’s one thing that you just know that’s on your bucket list that you have to accomplish at some point?
Abby: I want to visit all the countries.
Conor: If you had to sing karaoke in front of the entire school, what song would you choose?
Abby: I would sing Valerie.
Conor: Thank you so much and good luck in the future.
Abby: Of course, thank you so much.
Doug: Well, this has been a really fun show. Great to hear from all the princesses and I hope this year’s Daffodil Parade is outstanding and the weather is fantastic for it. We will be back in two weeks after spring break with another great episode.

On this week's show we take a field trip to meet some budding middle school scientists and their teacher who's been leading the school's Science Club for over a decade! We talk salmon dissection, tree planting, and even find out how they are making the world a better place for generations to come. All that plus useless trivia, in less than 15 minutes.

This week we hear from a variety of voices, from an amazing senior, all the way to the Superintendent. We dive into our Special Services program and discuss Unified Sports, co-teaching, and what we're doing to support non-verbal and medically-complex students. We also rundown our 2019 bond projects and give you the latest on the construction of the new Bethel High School and the new Cedarcrest Middle School. All that, plus useless trivia involving a secret mechanical horse in the White House, and the world's first computer bug!

On this week’s episode, we’re visiting Elk Plain School of Choice to explore their unique K-8 program and its specialized emphasis on the arts and sciences. We hear from a kindergartener and her older brother as they share what it’s like to learn in an environment where dance, theater, and science are part of the daily adventure. You’ll learn, laugh, and definitely say “awww” a few times as you hear from our youngest podcast guest ever. Plus, our weekly useless trivia features some high-flying facts about airports and the fascinating world of cloud science.

This week we’re introducing you to an automotive student from the Pierce County Skills Center who has already received over 20 job offers … before she’s even graduated! We then shift gears to address some concerning news from Olympia. Recent legislative developments could have a devastating impact on our district's budget, potentially costing us millions of dollars each year. We break down what this means for our students and discuss what steps are being taken to advocate for fair funding. On a brighter note, we're excited to share why researchers from Johns Hopkins University are making their way to our district, and we also dive into a remarkable success story: how some of our schools have reduced suspensions by an impressive 75%! 

On this week’s show, we're diving into one of the most creative approaches to social-emotional learning we've ever seen: a Dungeons & Dragons club where epic quests meet real-world character development. We sit down with a middle school counselor (and Price is Right contestant) who's brilliantly blending curriculum with campaigns, teaching students essential life lessons before they roll the dice. Students then put those skills into practice in fantastical worlds filled with dungeons, dragons, and difficult decisions. You'll also hear from one of his students who shares stories about the friendships forged and skeletons scattered. Along with all that we've got our weekly useless trivia segment featuring some perfectly "middle school" facts from our two guests, along with a surprising bit of U.S. history involving none other than Honest Abe himself. 

On this week's show, our useless trivia this week spans recorded history, from dinosaurs to the death of Abraham Lincoln! Then we'll cover the results of our replacement levy election, and hear from our School Board President and Superintendent as they discuss our district's budget. One of our Student School Board Representatives shares their perspective on what matters most, and we sit down with a paraeducator and teacher team to learn about the vital role paras play in creating inclusive classrooms and supporting every student's success. New episodes drop on Wednesdays. Check us out wherever you listen to podcasts and be sure to like, comment, subscribe, and share with a friend! bethelsd.org/podcast

On this week's show, we kick things off with some Super Bowl trivia before we sit down with one of our dedicated paraeducators who works behind the scenes to support student success every single day. We’ll also introduce you to one of our superstar seniors whose achievements and story will motivate listeners of all ages. Plus, we'll take you on a tour of Challenger Middle and High School, where you'll discover what makes this learning community so special, from innovative programs to the incredible staff and students who bring it to life. 

This week we bust some Bethel myths, including rumors of secret swimming pools and what really happens on late-start Mondays. We also find out how many gallons of gas our buses use each year, and unpack a bizarre piece of Seahawks trivia just in time for the Super Bowl! Election Day is February 10! Don't forget to VOTE!

On this week’s show, we hear from one of our Student School Board Representatives as we explore the vital role of music, sports, clubs, and other levy-funded activities in our schools. We also dive deep into our two replacement levies and discuss the incredible impact of voting in local elections. You'll also hear from an eighth-grade student musician who shares how music and jazz have transformed her life. And we’ll touch base with some teachers and coaches on how all these programs shape student success. And of course we’ll share some useless trivia from across the USA, and discuss an exciting and unique opportunity for you to join our School Board. 

This week we welcome Superintendent Brian Lowney, who shares his passionate perspective on how the upcoming levy renewals directly impact our students. Before diving into the serious stuff, we kick around some bizarre NFL history and surprising prohibition-era facts that will make you the star of your next dinner party. Then we pull back the curtain on our viral "Levy Hot Seat" video, and get some heartfelt insights about how local levy funding directly impacts classroom resources, student programs, and the overall educational experience we can provide to every child in our district. 

Ever wonder what happens behind the scenes to keep our schools connected, secure, and ready for whatever the future holds? This week, we're taking you on a deep dive to see the Technology Levy in action. From cybersecurity that’s protecting students and staff, to the iPads transforming how students learn and create, to the infrastructure humming quietly in the background that makes it all possible, you'll find out how technology is preparing our students for careers and challenges that don't even exist yet. Plus, we're spotlighting some seriously cool innovations, like the new tablets on school buses that help drivers navigate their routes while allowing students to check themselves on and off the bus. It’s a game-changer for student safety that ensures every child starts and ends their school day exactly where they should be. All that, along with our usual dose of useless trivia, in under 15 minutes. New episodes drop on Wednesdays. Check us out wherever you listen to podcasts and be sure to like, comment, subscribe, and share with a friend! bethelsd.org/podcast

Forget everything you think you know about shop class! The Pierce County Skills Center's Machining program is preparing students for high-paying careers right out of high school. We sit down with instructor Evan Thomas and senior Waylon to explore how students master everything from Computer-Aided Design and 3D printing to welding and sheet metal fabrication, creating a skill set that employers desperately need. 

On this week’s show we're featuring the work of our student producer, Millicent! You heard from her last week, and now we're excited to share her produced piece on cell phones in schools. In this episode, you'll hear how mobile devices are impacting education, candid interviews with teachers about how these devices affect their classrooms, and important discussions on screen time and cyberbullying. 

This week we have a third co-host join the show! Get ready to meet Millicent, one of the seniors in our district who is pursuing a career in journalism. We chat with her about a wide variety of topics, from Sudanese pyramids to artificial intelligence. We also learn about a podcast segment she's producing that we'll debut on our show next week! All that as well as useless trivia in this jam packed episode! 

On this week's episode we learn a strange piece of military history, dig into our students' test scores, and reveal our district's highest graduation rate ever! We also get updates on all of our bond projects (thank you, voters!) and we even discuss the meaning of time itself. Check us out wherever you listen to podcasts and be sure to like, comment, subscribe, and share with a friend!

This week, we break the internet with some HUGE news about our two replacement levies, before embarking on an exploration of Kit Kat flavors around the world. We also learn all about our Native American Education program that is helping students feel connected and seen in our schools.

This week we find out how many presidents were born in Illinois, which Disney character was Walt's favorite, and we'll dive deep into our early learning program to learn about all the ways we support our youngest learners and their families. 

This week we dig into safety and security in our district. First we hear from two school board members about the importance of emotional safety of our students. Then we chat with school staff that deal with safety and security day in and day out. We also make a little time for useless trivia about blue whales and Frisbee funerals. 

This week we ask some pointed questions about porcupines, ponder the plausibility of poultry pioneer Mike the Headless Chicken, and log on to a host of information about the Bethel Virtual Academy with one of our amazing teachers. By the end, you'll know more than you did at the beginning, and you'll finally know why one should NOT mess with Texas.

This week we learn all about our levy-funded music programs and discuss the wide variety of benefits students are getting from music education, including the feeling of "ensemble," opportunities for college scholarships and public performance, and much more. We also find out which of our co-hosts can be bribed with poutine, discover the oddities of Canadian football, and learn some very useless trivia that includes a story about the quietest room in the world. All that, plus a special message from one of our football coaches, in less than 15 minutes.

This week, we’re serving up a wild mix of flamingo facts, discussing rampant rhinos in eastern Washington, and learning about a middle school baking club that might just launch the legendary Great Bethel Bake Off! Plus, our very special guest discusses her visit to the Oval Office, and we uncover one of the most unsettling Guinness World Records to date. Spoiler: you will be uncomfortable.

This week we talk bubble wrap wallpaper, find out how many foods you can put peanut butter on, and discover which member of Team Bethel is fantasizing about fondue. We also go behind the scenes and learn about the hard work that went into getting free meals for ALL students in our district, and what families need to do to make sure it continues for years to come! (Hint: Fill out the form at bethelsd.org/meals)

This week we sit down with the principal of one of our award-winning schools to learn about lavender snakes and immortal jellyfish, before discussing the behind-the-scenes work that is elevating student voice at her school. We also chat about our district's upcoming renewal levies, and find out how our 2019 school construction bond projects are coming along.

This week, we'll hear the powerful story of a teacher who turned her early struggles into a lifelong mission to educate and uplift others. Growing up in Namibia, she explains how poverty was her greatest motivator, and how she walked miles each day just to get to school. Her teaching career began when she created a school at a border crossing in southern Africa, and today she brings that same passion to her classroom here in Bethel where she teaches Washington State History and ELA. Even more inspiring, she spends her summers back in Namibia, giving back to the village that raised her. That inspiring story, plus useless trivia, all in under 15 minutes!
 
 
 

This week we discuss classroom behavior, Bethel's budget, and $1.99 hot dog combos. We also learn whether sloths or dolphins would win in a very specific competition, and we find out which Pierce County school district was named one of Forbes best companies (hint ... it's us!).

This week we'll find out what Adam Sandler, Otis Redding and Colonel Sanders have in common before venturing into the world of getting students ready for life after high school. We'll do a deep dive into all the opportunities our students have to challenge themselves academically, with a few options that might surprise you! Before our 15 minutes are up you'll also figure out what the title of this episode means.

This week we're finding out which member of Team Bethel has a secret blue belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. We'll also discuss the first coin minted in the USA, whether sharks are older than trees, and we'll learn all about our Community Connections program. To finish it off, our very special guest will reveal their identity, their martial arts mojo, and much much more!