INSIDE

Primary school reunion planned

This summer organizers are hoping to draw a crowd of former students from 14 years of early education at the local school.

The reunion, planned for June 1 at Baker Field, is part celebration and part promotion. Teacher Rita Zimbelman Worth, who has welcomed every kindergarten to second grade class to the Point Roberts school since it opened in September 1993, will be retiring this June.

Next September a new teacher will take her place, but preliminary numbers indicate the problem of low enrollment at the local school will persist.

“The school really needs more enrollment and more exposure in the community,” said parks board and PTO member Linda Hughes at the parks district’s April 5 meeting. Hughes is leading a team of volunteers to organize the event, which they hope will include music, a picnic, guest speakers and the launch of the school’s new Connection Campaign.

The campaign, Hughes explained, would start with fundraising to put a reader board at the end of the school driveway, on Benson Road, which would announce sporting and cultural events taking place locally and at the Blaine campus.

“We want our kids to feel like they’re really part of Blaine schools,” she said. The reader board would also raise the community profile of the school.

Following an April 3 meeting with Blaine schools superintendent Ron Spanjer, Hughes said they expected a new teacher for the school would be chosen by May 15, and would be introduced to the community at the June 1 event. “

Since this position is so unique the standard job description would not be enough so we’ve sort of written our own,” she said.