PORT ANGELES — The Port Angeles School Board is one of 15 Washington state school boards that received a state award for its work in 2013.
The Port Angeles School Board was named a “2013 Board of Distinction” by the Washington State School Directors Association earlier this month and will receive the award and learn whether it earned “School Board of the Year” award during the annual conference this weekend in Bellevue.
It was the only North Olympic Peninsula school named.
“It’s fairly prestigious. I’m pretty excited about it,” said School Board President Lonnie Linn, who serves with board members Steve Baxter, Patti Happe, Cindy Kelly and Sarah Methner.
Linn said the Port Angeles contingent is among some very august company and credited the board’s fiscal and policy management for earning the award.
“If you get this, it’s pretty exceptional,” Linn said Tuesday.
The Washington State School Directors Association, founded in 1922, includes all of Washington’s 295 school districts.
Other districts
Other districts in which school boards were honored were Anacortes, Auburn, Ferndale, Franklin Pierce, Issaquah, Kent, Lake Stevens, Monroe, Pullman, South Kitsap, Sunnyside, Tumwater, University Place and Vancouver.
“Each of these boards has excelled in school governance,” said Debbie Long, president of the association.
“The boards had to rigorously document how their work was making a real difference for students.
“They are exceptional models of effective school boards,” Long added.
The annual Boards of Distinction program honors school boards that demonstrate effective use of the Washington School Board Standards.
The standards were developed and adopted by the state association in 2009 to promote research-based governance practices that encourage high levels of student and district achievement.
The 295 districts in the association serve more than 1 million students, have a combined annual budget of nearly $10 billion and employ more than 160,000 people, the group said.
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5070, or at arwyn.rice@peninsuladailynews.com.
