Henkle Students Give School Board Members A Science-Based Lesson

The first group of presenters, made a hair dye solution and earlier in the week got to test it on their teacher, Ms. Simpers. The second group took on the homemade slime epidemic, adding borax to make the slime “slow moving” and bits of iron to make it react to a magnet, and handing out chunks of the slime to members of the School Board and audience.

The final group put a new twist on a more traditional experiment. The typical experiment done with borax is making ornaments out of pipe cleaners. By putting the pipe cleaners into a solution of water and borax where it would form, or “grow,” crystals on the pipe clean-er fibers. This group tried the experiment on multiple objects, not just pipe cleaners and found that the crystallization process still hap-pens but not as effectively when there are no fibers to latch on too.

After the presentations the night opened to allow for another presentation from a representative of the Parent to Parent (P2P) group in Klickitat County, Donna Tiffan.

“Parent to Parent is a state run support program by parents for parents of children with both physical and developmental disabilities with representatives in each county, though not all counties have formed groups,” said Tiffan.

Klickitat County had a P2P group in the past, but it phased out very quickly when many of its programs, such as support for young mothers, were no longer necessary because they were being covered Washington Gorge Action Programs. The new P2P has been in the county for about a year now and really focuses on families with children with disabilities like autism and Down’s Syndrome.

Throughout the fall, P2P has been hosting guest speakers at the White Salmon Valley Community Library. The group will be holding its last one of 2017 on Dec. 12. The forum will focus on Special Education and Transition to Adult Services.

“I came here tonight to talk about Parent to Parent and what we do, because it is often an awkward conversation to initiate with parents of children with special needs. Often schools and teachers can seek out those families and point them in our direction and encourage the connection. We really want to work with schools and connect parents to each other and provide all the support we can,” said Tiffan.

In other business:

The School Board briefly dis-cussed how to go about addressing the situation regarding the pro-posed rezoning of a lot near the intermediate, middle, and high schools by Sagetech.

Some board members voiced that they will be sending letters as individual citizens to the Klickitat County Planning Commission and attending a scheduled public hearing in Goldendale on Nov 20. (Rescheduled)

Supt. Jerry Lewis indicated he has already written a letter to the Planning Commission voicing his concerns as a school administrator. A longtime kindergarten teacher at Whitson Elementary School, Linda Tolbert, announced she will be retiring at the end of the school year after 35 years of teaching.