Boy, have we been busy!
My first home on Vashon was a nine-month winter rental.
I love you. You’re terrific. Great job. Congratulations. I’m so proud of you.
There have been many questions raised about Chautauqua’s preschool program. As a parent of a 4-year-old who attended this program for the past two years, I can honestly say that I am honored to be a part of it, both as parent and principal. The following is my attempt at providing a brief overview of the program, including how students are being served, the district’s obligations for providing a preschool program and where we go from here.
As many of us now know, the Island’s synagogue was broken into and defaced. Written on the west-facing wall, near the ark where the Torah is kept, were the words “God Hates Jews,” accompanied by a Nazi swastika.
I recall a woman telling me once at a party years ago that her 12-year-old was rebelling, starting to date boys too early and starting to be snappy and surly. I listened with trepidation, holding my new baby in my arms and wondering how I could avoid this fate. I remember the woman sighed deeply and said something to the effect of, “I don’t know what good it will do me to correct anything at this point. All of those parenting experts say that once your kid hits 13, you’ve done pretty much all you can do. From there on in, your kid is raised by their peers.”
It’s been an intense week on Vashon Island in the aftermath of the Havurat Ee Shalom’s desecration. Stars of David, many of them printed and distributed by Islander Alice Orr, have been posted on windows, cars, even front doors. A vigil — organized by Father Tryphon — drew perhaps 100 people. Television crews arrived on Vashon, visiting, among others, The Beachcomber office. (They wanted a copy of the photograph we ran in last week’s paper of the anti-Semitic graffiti at the synagogue.) And finally, the King County Sheriff’s Office and Prosecutor’s Office have begun investigating the incident as a hate crime, calling it “a textbook case,” as deputy prosecutor Mike Hogan put it.
I love you. You’re terrific. Great job. Congratulations. I’m so proud of you.
It’s been an intense week on Vashon Island in the aftermath of the Havurat Ee Shalom’s desecration. Stars of David, many of them printed and distributed by Islander Alice Orr, have been posted on windows, cars, even front doors. A vigil — organized by Father Tryphon — drew perhaps 100 people. Television crews arrived on Vashon, visiting, among others, The Beachcomber office. (They wanted a copy of the photograph we ran in last week’s paper of the anti-Semitic graffiti at the synagogue.) And finally, the King County Sheriff’s Office and Prosecutor’s Office have begun investigating the incident as a hate crime, calling it “a textbook case,” as deputy prosecutor Mike Hogan put it.
I love you. You’re terrific. Great job. Congratulations. I’m so proud of you.
Seeing one’s verbal quote in print — as I did when I picked up Wednesday’s Beachcomber and read the story, “School board passes a $15m budget” — always seems a little stark and dramatic. Certainly the statement I made — that “Vashon does not have a reputation for supporting families with kids with disabilities” — can seem a little severe, given the number of caring teachers, support workers and community members who do support those families and children.
Let me state as emphatically as can be conveyed in newsprint: The fight to protect Maury Island is not over. And far from being a last-gasp fight, our battle remains a strong one.
A perfect storm took my wife and me off Vashon in early 2002 — some kind of collective response to Sept. 11, loss of a parent to cancer and the opportunity to make change in a neighboring community long suffering from civic neglect.
