karate green belt

just 20 minutes from vancouver, washington,you'll find hockinson, a small unincorporated area tucked in among rolling hills, tall treesand open meadows. come to school here, and you'll find a small-town atmosphere with three schools -- an elementary, middle and high school. it's a place where students often start out as

kindergarten classmates and stay togetherthrough their senior year. you're going to take this seriously becauseyou love reading. meet linda souvenir, a first grade teacher.linda moved to hockinson so her children could experiencea small school district.

because we're in such a small rural community, these families are long-term families, generations upongenerations. sense of community is the first thing we teach. starting in kindergarten, students thoughtfully progress with the next grade's skills in mind. by 4th grade, students are building on theirknowledge and creativity. teacher renee fern describes the most importantconcepts she teaches her students. to be curious, to wonder, to look at things in multi-perspectives. we give her a lot of ideas she's never heardbefore. as we prepare our students, we're just providing that foundation to build from grade level to grade level.

therefore going from 5th to 6th down the hill, as we call it, from 5th grade down to the middle school, they are provided with that vocabulary, that sense of community, that foundation, that respect and also the academics to continue to help them roll through their years. in fact we were just at the elementary schoollast week meeting with the fifth grade teachers seeing where are the weaknesses for this group of kids, where are the strengths, so we know what they need when they get here. what we do is provide more context and support within the district to make it a k-12 experienceversus a k-5 experience, a 6-8 experience and a 9-12 experience. our schools are small enough to personalizean education. one way we do this is by giving

students increasing choices in assignments,so they can enter at their level of ability and take it as far as possible. obviously there are some things all kids haveto learn, but the ways they can learn it and the way they can have input into how theyare going to learn it, is what we are focusing on. so knowing what we know about the electoralcollege, about the house of representatives, about the election of 1824, do we need to change the system? content is important, but it is reallythe skills that they develop in learning that content that will serve them well in high school andbeyond. the key for us is the relationships and thecommitment that our staff has for their kids.

and we live that. at the high school students encounter a wide variety of clubs and activities and pursue those skill-building opportunities. half the student body playsat least one sport, and 65 percent are involved in at least one school-sponsored activity. the on-time graduation rate for hockinsonis consistently one of the best in the country. our graduation rate is phenomenal. these are kids we've known since their freshman year. there's only 163 of them, so we know them very well. and by the time they get to their senior year, we know exactly where their deficiencies and strengths are,

and we can tailor their education to get them across the finish line. i'm going to whitworth university. cal poly colorado state university florida southern college brigham young university central washington university gonzaga university united states navy

whitworth university we love hockinson!