These are my children
Kindergaren teacher Lynda Bowers shares a light-hearted moment with some of her students at Lutacaga Elementary at the end of a recent school day. Bowers will be retired at the end of this school year after teaching for 31 years in the Othello School District. In that time, Bowers has seen many changes in education and observed the growth of the district, two indicators she believes show a need for remodels and upgrades to school facilities which will go to a vote May 17.<br>Aimee Hornberger/Columbia Basin Herald
Othello teacher to retire at end of 2004-2005 school year
OTHELLO — When Lynda Bowers first started teaching in the Othello School District 31 years ago, state standardized tests were not the norm, students wrote papers by hand and teachers had more freedom as to what and how curriculum would be administered.
Today, all that has changed.
With the prospect of an ever growing community and changes in education policy, the end of the 2004-2005 school year will be an important crossroads in the ebb and flow of academia in the OSD.
That is not only because the district will be taking a $27 million bond to the voters May 17. For Bowers the impact is more personal, as it will be her last year teaching in room nine at Lutacaga Elementary where she has spent the last 14 years teaching alongside her sister Sandi Dodge; Bowers spent the 17 previous years teaching at McFarland Junior High School.
With the reality of retirement in the very near future, Bowers sits across from her sister, recalling her first impressions as a young girl of Lutacaga Elementary.
"It was so big," Bowers recalls touring the then newly constructed school in the 1950s with her grandmother. "Everything was a new, California design … now their just dying because there's no hall (space)."
Starting out as a home economics teacher in the 1970s, Bowers has traded in her favorite recipes and sewing kits for computers and reading programs that have become the latest trends in education.
"Thirty years ago they wouldn't have known what that was," said Bowers of the surge in computer technology.
With the adoption of the district's Reading First grant two years ago and state assessments such as the Washington Assessment of Student Learning, students are not the only ones walking through Bowers' classroom and taking an active interest in education.
"Parents are working a lot harder to prepare for kindergarten," said Bowers, citing resources such as the Parent Teacher Association (PTA), and an increase in parent-teacher communication as a few ways parents are keeping up on the education of their children.
In a district where a high percentage of students like kindergartner Ailyn Calderon speak Spanish, making sure there is ample opportunity for both bilingual learning and preparing students to take state standardized tests can be challenging, but is a challenge some of Bowers' students like Calderon are overcoming.
Calderon is just one example of a student who did not speak any English at the beginning of the school year and is now in the top of her class in reading English, said Bowers.
"I tell them cinco plus uno is six," said Calderon of helping other Spanish-speaking students learn English.
From observing students rise to the occasion of helping their fellow classmates to taking note of more disturbing changes in school atmosphere over the years such as gang violence, drugs and teen pregnancy, Bowers does not underestimate her influence as a teacher or that of her small town community to make a difference in the lives of students.
"These are my children and I'm connected with them," said Bowers.