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The La Conner High School football team has its season debut against Forks at Whittaker Field Saturday, Sept. 10. Second-year mentor Charlie Edwards’ team will spread the field and rely on speed and athleticism. The home team will be looking to capitalize on potential game-breakers like junior Tommy Murdock, the reigning state 300-meter hurdles champion. The Braves are looking to benefit from an extra week of preparation as their Sept. 3 non-conference home opener with Morton-White Pass was taken off the schedule. Kickoff is 2 p...
La Conner Schools leaders want to meet you and hear your questions, concerns and suggestions starting Sept. 15 at 7 a.m. at Stompin’ Grounds Coffee, on Morris Street. Join Superintendent Will Nelson, Director of Special Programs Andy Wheeler, Business Manager Brian Gianello, Teaching and Learning Director Beth Clothier and Director of Operations and Planning Bobby Vaughn, the district’s five-member cabinet. The Oct. 14 outreach will be at 12 p.m. at the Swinomish Education tents at John K. Bob Ball Park. After the Nov. 15 (2:30 p.m.) mee...
New La Conner Schools administrator Tanya Houle is fond of hats. Good thing, too, since she will be wearing several in her dual role as La Conner Middle and High School assistant principal and career and technology education (CTE) director. The personable Houle wears a smile as often – if not more – than her stylish headpieces. Her approach to school administration is to lead with compassion and create safe and meaningful learning environments for all students. "A couple of my primary goals wil...
Great Expectations. It is not just a famous Charles Dickens novel. It is also the mantra of the La Conner High School volleyball program, winner of six state crowns in the past 20 years, including 2019 and 2021. Only the pandemic stood in the way of another likely championship run in 2020, when the season was shifted to spring with no post-season. Despite significant losses to graduation, the team has turned the page while still hoping to write another chapter, as if inspired by the Dickens title. “We don’t change our expectations from yea...
Data was the name of the game – along with a fall sports update – when the La Conner School Board met Aug. 22 in a 90-minute hybrid session on campus. Director of Special Programs Andy Wheeler and Teacher and Learning Director Beth Clothier took lead roles. Clothier provided her update via Zoom on staff summer training for the new all-grades math curricula. Clothier said more than 50 staffers had participated in nine days of math curricula training this summer. The trainers commended the La Conner staff, ranking it ahead of “90% of other staff...
Less than two years ago Charlie Edwards was the architect of a stout defense that helped La Conner High School clinch a league football title. That was during a shortened, conference-only season shifted to the spring in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. These days, Edwards finds himself in his second year as La Conner's head grid coach and back at the drawing board – this time to draft a blueprint for a successful rebuild of a Braves' program. The team suffered nearly a dozen losses to g...
The roster has changed and so has the game plan for the La Conner High School boys' soccer team. The Braves opened preseason workouts Monday minus key players who graduated from last year's club that placed fifth with a 7-8 mark in the NW2B title chase, forcing La Conner head coach Galen McKnight to tweak his attack. "We're going to have play a different style," McKnight told the Weekly News. "We'll have to play smart and rely on a lot of passing rather than try to score quickly on each...
Faced with a projected drop in student enrollment, La Conner school board members on Monday unanimously approved a $13.8 million dollar budget that includes forced staff reductions in the new academic year. The amount is only down slightly from last year’s $14 million. Three full-time teaching positions were cut. At the same time the board also approved a two-year labor agreement negotiated with the La Conner Education Association (LEA) during the 45-minute session July 25. It includes state-funded cost of living support and a 1.5% per annum lo...
La Conner School board members went on retreat Monday to plan a path forward for the 2022-23 academic year, addressing a wide range of discussion topics – from finances and goal setting to maintenance priorities and student enrollment– during a three-hour afternoon in-person public session at the Swinomish Casino conference room. The dozen agenda items included reports from district business manager Brian Gianello and operations and planning director Bobby Vaughn. Gianello had good news, reporting that an infusion of $852,000 in...
Dustin Swanson is the new head coach of the Stanwood High School girls’ basketball team. Swanson was the La Conner High School assistant basketball coach. Swanson, from a pioneer La Conner family, was an integral part of basketball teams here for 15 years, serving on the high school boys’ and girls’ staffs and coaching youths from Little Dribblers through eighth grade. He hopes to replicate the success he had working alongside head coach Scott Novak. Swanson was courtside with Braves and Lady...
Fifteen years ago, 650 students attended grades K-12 at La Conner Schools. But this fall only 530 are projected, an enrollment drop that will have a direct impact on the school district’s 2022-23 budget. School officials are forecasting a $13 million budget next year, down from $14.5 million in 2021-22, in response to anticipated reduced state funding and federal impact aid support linked to student enrollment. The district has already eliminated two in-person teaching positions. The board h...
C.J. Woods has been named the La Conner School District’s new director of athletics after his first year as a teacher and boys’ head basketball coach. The district has been splitting the assistant principal/athletics director position. Woods will retain his coaching position and teach physical education and health at the middle school. He has already done a deep dive into the intricacies of the position. “The role ranges from day-to-day athletic organization to big project planning and organization,” he said. “Every day you coordinat...
Preschool is coming back to the La Conner campus by popular demand. The La Conner School Board on June 13 approved the return of a district preschool program this fall on a one-year trial basis after members were assured it would be supported by outside funding sources and not dip into a K-12 budget projected to be tight due to declining enrollment. Board members gave the green light for a 15-student, four days per week, morning only campus preschool staffed by one teacher and a paraprofessional. The decision followed an impassioned...
School’s out for summer. The next La Conner School District board director elections are in 2023, but this spring the district’s school board made slight adjustments to the five director district boundaries. The 2020 census obliged adjusting director boundaries to match population growth, now over 5,000 residents. The school board voted on new boundaries at its May meeting, adopting maps that adjusted the five district boundaries distributing residents as equally as possible to fairly rep...
The La Conner High School graduating class had to adapt during the COVID-19 pandemic and then one last time Friday evening. The 128th annual commencement exercises were moved from Whittaker Field to Landy James Gym when forecasts predicted rainfall. There were few dry eyes among families and friends of the graduates during the emotional 90-minute ceremony. “COVID was not kind to this class,” stressed co-valedictorian Delaney Cobbs, one of several student speakers. “By the time we hit our junio...
Few have shown the can-do spirit on a sustained basis as well as Shegay Vanderpool. The career educator, after all, has proved since the early 1970s that she can do just about anything in the classroom, at all grade levels. Same with the campus music hall. And auditorium. Not to mention the counseling office. In baseball parlance, said her longtime friend, retired La Conner Middle School principal Maureen Harlan, Vanderpool is the ultimate utility player – someone versatile and skilled...
The school district honored its volunteers – a vital group of more than 70 strong – along with retirees and colleagues not returning here in the fall with a reception and awards program at the middle school gym June 7. The 90-minute event led off with school administrators and staff praising the volunteers, who lent their time and expertise across academic activities at all grade levels. “Just think of all that volunteer time,” said Superintendent Will Nelson, serving as the afternoon’s master of ceremonies. “I can’t imagine that yo...
La Conner high school's graduating class. Graduation Friday, June 10 at 5 p.m....
La Conner High School has held annual commencements for more than a century but the 5 p.m. June 10 graduation at Whittaker Field will offer something new. Those attending will be officially welcomed in four languages, Lushootseed, English, Spanish and American Sign Language. “We’re excited about that,” La Conner Middle and High School Counselor Lori Buher told the Weekly News. In another all-time first, the Class of 2022 boasts co-valedictorians and co-salutatorians. Charity Dakota Jordan, who r...
Ryan Hiller and Beth Clothier were instrumental in helping La Conner schools navigate uncharted waters posed by a global pandemic. The couple, members of the La Conner High School Class of 1987, were formally recognized as the school’s Outstanding Alumni for 2022 at the La Conner Alumni Association’s annual banquet and program in the middle school gymnasium June 4. “These two individuals are very important to the school district,” said association vice-president Susie Deyo. “During the pande...
Even though Eleonora Libé got sick her first days here after what seemed to her an endless flight, she is living her dream since then over the last nine months. The senior exchange student at La Conner High School turned 18 years old this April in Washington state, away from her family. This is the adventure she chose to live back in 2020, when she saw on social media other exchange students from her country in American schools. Stressed with Italian school and eager to travel and...
Winning has long been par for La Conner High School senior Emma Worgum. The Lady Braves’ senior golf standout has excelled throughout her high school career, including summer tournaments. She capped her fantastic four-year run by capturing the Washington 1B/2B girls’ state championship at Deer Park May 25. She carded a two-day score of 144 – highlighted by a three-under-par 69 during Thursday’s second round – to win the title by 17 strokes. “Emma played great,” golf coach Jamie Car...
La Conner School Board members dealt with topics from A to Z during their two-hour hybrid meeting May 23. During public comments, a series of speakers stressed the value of preschool instruction being accessible to all children. They said it helps build a lifetime foundation of academic and social-emotional skills and that a district program will make sure children unable to attend private preschools not “fall through the cracks.” Members said they will consider it. Counselor Lori Buher reported that 24 seniors plan to attend four-year pub...
La Conner High School sophomore Tommy Murdock won the boys’ state 2B 300-meter hurdles title in storybook fashion at Cheney May 26-28. Murdock, who had bolted to an early lead, clipped the final hurdle before tumbling across the finish line. Despite the late fall, it was Murdock who moments later climbed atop the winner’s podium to collect the gold medal in his signature event. “He won pretty decisively,” La Conner head track coach Peter Voorhees said. Murdock clocked a 0:40.76 in the final,...
Passage of national Title IX legislation 50 years ago began leveling the playing field for female athletes. Now, five La Conner High School senior girls have signed letters of intent to compete for college athletic programs next school year. Juna Swanson, Sarah Cook, Rachel Cram, Emma Keller and Emma Worgum were front and center at Landy James Gym May 17, with their friends, family members and school staff during a 45-minute collegiate athletics letter of intent signing ceremony. “This is a s...
