Parents & students spent the MLK Jr. holiday removing invasive plants and planting native plants at Tukwila's Codiga Park. The Parent Association collaborated with People for Puget Sound for the project.

Join us January 13, 7pm for a workshop on applying for financial aid. Current & prospective families are welcome. Contact the Admissions Office to RSVP.

The final week of school is always full of creative energy.  Projects culminate, semester classes end, and there is a shared exhale and feeling of arrival to the winter break.

The week is also characterized by a degree of shared experience that benchmarks the growth in trust students gain for one another over the course of the term. It is a moment when students seem to grow in their capacity to hear one another, and even to use what they hear in making their own work more connected, more meaningful.

You could see it in the commons last Tuesday where a seventh grade boy sat reading his American History paper aloud to friends, asking for a feedback to help him fine tune his final work of the term. Down the hall on Thursday, you could see it in the Geography Bee finals, where students cheered on finalists Gavin (8th), Ish (7th) and Max (6th). You saw it on stage at the Bathhouse Wednesday night, when over 50 alums joined teachers, students and families for the production of Macbeth. It was the audible cheer from the student section at the end of Macbeth’s soliloquy, or the seriousness with which the actors answered the audience’s questions at the end, or the play they exhibited with each other during those answers, revealing their sense of camaraderie, and familiarity.

The last day of school brought the news that Billings Beta, our class tech blog, had been recognized nationally as the Best class tech blog for 2009. Congratulations!!! It was a prestigious moment for the many students and teachers who contribute to the blog. It was recognition that resounded throughout our classes, where many of the issues raised on the blog become class topics.

In Debate, our many week study of post-Brown school segregation cases led to several spontaneous conversations around race and identity in unexpected places online. “I suddenly realized,” said one student, “there are assumed images everywhere – first person games where the hands you see acting against other players are always white.” It was an observation that prompted a series of others – recognition by the whole group that strong symbolic images pervade their conversations and their gameplaces.

It’s an example of the ways students hear one another in a new way at the end of a long term, and use what they hear to extend important conversations. It’s a quiet, important piece of growth at the end of a wonderful first semester. May all these strands of conversation carry home for a restful, fun reflective New Year!

Annual Dinner & Play for Billings Alum on 12/16. Pizza dinner @ 5pm, Main Campus; drama ensemble performs Macbeth @ 7pm at the Bathhouse Theatre.