The mayor鈥檚 holiday card is a BPS, COB tradition
I wanted to make a polar bear with hearts on its scarf. The hearts show love. I added snowflakes for winter and added water because polar bears live in the Arctic.鈥
Those are the words of student artist Isabella (Izzy) Antes describing her drawing submitted to the Mayor鈥檚 Office this fall.
Every year before the holidays, Bellingham Public Schools and the City of Bellingham work together to select artwork to be used as the mayor鈥檚 holiday card. Hundreds of winter-themed drawings from an elementary school make it to City Hall where artwork is chosen as the images used on the cards in this annual tradition.
Joyful and messy cafeteria chaos put into words by BPS paraeducator
Onomatopoeia is a type of word that phonetically mimics the sound that it describes. In Katie Clark鈥檚 book聽Welcome to the Lunchroom, she recreates the joyful and messy chaos of a school cafeteria through descriptive storytelling and the onomatopoeic 鈥渂ang,鈥 鈥渃rash鈥 and 鈥減lop鈥 associated with her work as a cafeteria paraeducator. .
School assemblies and events are a chance to engage with community around culture and history
Both during and outside of the school day, our students engage with the community in meaningful ways. The learning is two-way: community members have the opportunity to see our students in action, and students get to hear firsthand experiences from the community.
The following links lead to few of these learning opportunities this fall:
Translation devices assist and welcome newly arrived families
Ten Instant Language Assistant devices, or ILAs, have arrived in Bellingham Public Schools to serve our families who speak languages other than English.
The devices instantly translate more than 200 different world languages, including a variety of regional dialects. The Spanish language, for example, can be translated into 20 different dialects by country within the device, ranging from Spain and Mexico through all of the Latin Americas.
Six of the devices were purchased with a grant from the Washington state Office of Superintendent for Public Instruction (OSPI) and the other four were acquired through the district鈥檚 local technology levy.
AP Honor Roll Recognition from College Board
Bellingham, Sehome and Squalicum high schools each received 2024 AP Honor Roll recognition from the College Board, and all three schools have earned this honor for at least two consecutive years.
More than half of our 4,000 high school students have taken at least one AP class.
High schools in BPS offer聽, although not every school offers every class every year.
Access to AP classes for all students demonstrates one of the core beliefs of The 一本道app, that 鈥渁ll students can learn at high levels.鈥 A strong AP program with low barriers to entry encourages all students to challenge themselves and to build academic stamina and a growth mindset.
In the News: November recap
collects recent media coverage celebrating the people, programs and moments in Bellingham Public Schools. Photo: Hailey Hoffman/Cascadia Daily News
