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After not taking the court for 17 months due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the two-time defending state 2B champion La Conner High volleyball team needed less than an hour to defeat league rival Orcas Island in the season opening match for both schools Thursday afternoon at Landy James Gym. Waiting nearly a year and a half to play less than 60 minutes is not an ideal scenario, but La Conner is on a mission during its modified one-month spring campaign to make the best of a situation that is still a...
The La Conner and Coupeville high school football teams worked overtime Saturday night, but it was the host Wolves who cashed in with a hard fought 6-0 NW2B triumph in the season debut for both programs. Coupeville running back Ben Smith, who had been bottled up much of the contest by a stout La Conner defensive unit, scored the game’s lone touchdown with a one-yard blast to cap the Wolves’ sole possession of the extra session. The Braves, who had avoided key mistakes in regulation running out of their new Wing-T formation, fumbled on La Con...
Will Nelson is a new face in town. But it will not be long before his will be a familiar face. Nelson, chosen last Wednesday as the new superintendent of La Conner Schools, plans to be a visible administrator, interacting regularly with students, staff and the community at large. “I’m really passionate about the position,” Nelson, director of equity and student success at Arlington Public Schools and a member of the Blackfeet Nation, told board members during a rigorous interview process last...
The first pitch of the last season of youth baseball at historic Hedlin’s Ballfield has yet to be thrown, but game plans are already being developed for next year. At least in terms of securing a new sports venue in 2022. Spring practices have begun much as they have this time of year going back decades, but now prospective building lots for a planned new residential development are staked out behind the ballfield’s backstop and parallel to its first base line. These are subtle signs that the nearly two-acre Maple Avenue site is soon to be con...
The La Conner High track and field and softball teams made up for lost time in big ways last week. After having their entire 2020 schedules shelved by COVID-19 and losing two weeks this season due to positive virus test cases, the two local school sports programs wrapped up their shortened 2021 campaign with a flourish. The track teams competed twice last week, including their lone home meet, a Senior Day clash with NW2B rivals Mount Vernon Christian, Coupeville and Concrete on Wednesday that saw La Conner top both halves of the leaderboard....
They say 90 per cent of success is just showing up. The La Conner High baseball team, sidelined for the 2019 and 2020 seasons, reached the 90 per cent mark this spring with a rebuilt young roster loaded with eighth graders and freshmen. The next step for veteran co-coaches Jeremiah LeSourd and Andy Otis is to bring the team the remaining 10 per cent during what hopefully will be a full schedule next spring. The Braves dropped their final two games of a modified and shortened 2021 varsity season with conference losses last week to Darrington...
Narrowing the field is not the sole domain of college basketball this month. La Conner school board members last weekend chose two finalists from among 21 applicants for the district’s superintendent position, the last step in a process that began last fall. David Forsythe, assistant superintendent of operations at Northwest Educational Services District #189, which serves 35 public school entities and 170,000 students in Skagit, Island, San Juan, Snohomish and Whatcom counties, and Will N...
For the La Conner High baseball team, idle the past two seasons, progress is not always measured on the scoreboard. Take the Braves NW2B home clash with Orcas Island last Friday, for example. The Vikings posted a 20-6 triumph in six innings, but that does not reflect the strides that La Conner – with seven freshmen and two eighth graders on its roster – has made in three short weeks. The hosts, fueled by timely hitting, several catching gems and a strong start by pitcher Haydin Dinuis, held a 6-5 lead after four frames before...
The public is encouraged to attend community meetings 6 p.m. Monday and Tuesday, March 29-30 to meet and interview the finalist candidates for superintendent of the La Conner School District in the Bruce Performing Arts Center Auditorium and Zoom.. Each finalistwill beon campus for events scheduled 8 a.m.-7 p.m. with staff,Swinomish Tribal Senators, an open public community meeting and an executive session with the board. David Forsythe, assistant director from NWESD 189 in Anacortes returns Monday.Will Nelson, director of equity, Arlington...
Last Friday marked the first home baseball game for La Conner High in three years. But the youthful Braves, whose roster includes seven freshmen and two eighth graders, did not enjoy a total home field advantage. That is because La Conner was paired against NW2B rival Mount Vernon Christian, which had already played twice on the Braves’ diamond this spring. The Hurricanes, who for a third time brought a large entourage of fans, are using the La Conner field as their home venue this season u...
The award-winning La Conner High Knowledge Bowl program is used to having all the answers. And, true to form, not even 2020’a universal campus lockdowns imposed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic has kept team members from participating at a high level. By using technology and collaborating with other knowledge bowlers across Washington state, the team has found a way to practice and compete despite the virus crisis, which forced schools to start the academic year with remote learning formats. La Conner’s Chronically Iliad entry, com...
They go in the books as a pair of double-digit losses, but the La Conner High baseball team’s setbacks at Friday Harbor and Coupeville last week represent a win-win situation of sorts for the Braves. The team is back between the chalk lines after not seeing action since 2018. It is also, so far, prevailing over COVID-19. La Conner was unable to field a baseball team in 2019 due to low numbers. The onset of the virus crisis last spring wiped out the 2020 baseball season. Thus, the Braves’ 27-...
Let the games begin. In fact, they already have. The La Conner High track teams swept a league meet at Coupeville on Friday. The school’s softball team hosted NW2B/1B rival Darrington Saturday afternoon, dropping a 25-3 verdict in four innings. La Conner’s golf teams traveled Monday to Grace Academy, while the Braves baseball program was scheduled at Friday Harbor yesterday. Those represented the first La Conner High sports action in nearly a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which closed campu...
The La Conner School Board held a special meeting Monday that lived up to its name. It was termed “special” because it opened with a walking tour of the campus. What was truly special came next. The members convened their first in-person meeting in a year – since the COVID-19 pandemic forced closure of schools statewide last March and led the board to conduct its public sessions on the Zoom tele-conferencing platform. Masked and socially distanced, board members met in the district administration building to hear updates on La Con...
La Conner High spring sports teams launched their 2021 campaign earlier than usual with practices starting Monday afternoon. Even so, they have some catching up to do. After all, the 2020 season was entirely wiped out by the COVID-19 pandemic. The school’s softball and baseball teams managed one scrimmage together in mid-March before campuses were closed statewide in response to the virus crisis. In years past, the first day of full spring workouts would have coincided with completion of the s...
Interim La Conner schools Superintendent Rich Stewart and school district voters have given a giant present to students, staff, parents and the yet-to-be-chosen new school superintendent: an overwhelming, 71% yes vote in the Feb. 9 election for a four year replacement educational programs and operations levy. Most of the remaining ballots were counted Thursday. In La Conner, 361 more yes votes were in the additional 542 ballots. The Concrete Schools renewal levy for educational programs and operations won with 57.9% of the vote, as did the two...
La Conner Schools is back on the road to in-person instruction. The proof is in the familiar yellow buses that have begun picking up and delivering students along a half-dozen routes in the school district. The buses began rolling Feb. 1 as students in lower grades returned to campus under a plan that will see older students gradually phased into La Conner Elementary by the end of the month. The sight of school buses with flashing lights on La Conner area roads is fairly common, but the COVID-19 pandemic has made necessary an even greater...
The push to re-open schools during the COVID-19 pandemic has sparked a national call that teachers, administrators and support staff be vaccinated as they return to campus. A partnership between La Conner schools and the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community has made that happen locally. Swinomish health team members administered vaccines to around 100 La Conner Schools employees last Wednesday, midway point of the first week students in lower elementary grades returned to campus. Swinomish Health Administrator Jennifer LaPointe teamed with La...
Nearly a week after its staff was vaccinated against COVID-19, La Conner Schools received more good medicine Tuesday night. Initial election results posted on the Skagit County elections office website report district voters approved by a 970-374 margin a four-year, $4.04 million replacement levy that will fund school programs in five key areas through 2025. That is 72.2% for and 27.8% opposed. La Conner’s was one of three school districts asking for operations funding, with Concrete and M...
Oprah Winfrey is quoted as saying, “The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude.” Our School District is in the process of another change, which means there is an impact on our community as well. The La Conner School District has set a target date of February 1 to begin bringing students back to school. This will be a phased approach starting with pre-first grade students in a hybrid model; the details are on the La Conner School District website. We are hopeful that by the end of...
The La Conner School Board on Monday approved a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the school district and La Conner Education Association addressing requirements for returning to school during the COVID-19 pandemic. The agreement focuses on putting in place health screening, masking, social distancing and room cleaning and sanitizing standards to safely bring students and staff back to school. “This gives everybody some structure with which to work through the hybrid model,” interim sup...
Interim superintendent Rich Stewart has been a virtual presence around greater La Conner in recent days. Stewart, who assumed the district helm last July, has given a series of Zoom presentations to the Town Council, Swinomish Tribal Senate and local service organizations and residents, outlining the upcoming La Conner Schools replacement levy proposal. The Feb. 9 ballot measure seeks to collect $1.45 per $1,000 assessed taxable property value, a five-cent decrease from the rate district voters approved in 2019, Stewart explained to Council...
La Conner students have done plenty of homework this year, due to the remote learning format adopted to curb spread of COVID-19. School officials have been loaded with homework, too. Their assignment: develop a plan to safely transition students to in-person instruction. A Feb. 1 start was part of the framework unanimously approved by school board members during a 75-minute Zoom meeting Monday night. La Conner Schools’ Director of Special Programs Andy Wheeler outlined the plan, which had been d...
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, high school sports schedules have changed again and again. Still more changes were announced last Wednesday. The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA) executive board, in response to new pandemic guidelines outlined by Gov. Jay Inslee, has ruled practices for the traditional fall sports season can begin Feb. 1. After several planned launches dating to last summer, the WIAA is now calling the seven-week fall campaign Season 1. “The change in guidelines,” WIAA Executive Director Mick Hof...
Going digital has been the norm in public education since the COVID-19 pandemic forced classes on-line last spring. But within the La Conner Schools art department the learning curve has been less steep. District tech director Ryan Hiller brought a digital art class into the curriculum several years ago and last September veteran art teacher Patty Weber began teaching a technical art class on distance education platforms. Weber, who majored in Fine and Applied Arts at the University of Oregon,...
