Nooksack Valley School District voters, don’t forget about the two levy requests on your ballot.

Click here to read about them.

The next in a series of talks organized by Western Washington University about the brain and neuroscience is set for Monday, Feb. 6, at Club Glow.

“The Surprising Ability of the Brain to Cope: Lessons from Neurodegeneration” is the topic, which will be hosted by Jeff Carroll, a postdoctoral fellow in Western’s psychology department.

The free event is open to the public. It will be from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at 202 E. Holly St. (above Bob’s Burgers & Brew) in downtown Bellingham.

The series is called “Neuroscience on Tap: Bring Your Own Brain (BYOB).”

Click here for details. Or call 360-650-2148 and email coco.besson@wwu.edu.

Bruce Shepard, president of Western Washington University, was among the school leaders who spoke at a Town Hall in Seattle about the long-term repercussions of deep cuts in state funding to higher education to Washington state.

All six of Washington state’s public university presidents talked about the risks of continued cuts to higher education. Business leaders also were at the Town Hall.

Click here to read about Shepard’s concerns and those of other university presidents in the state.

And here’s a TVW webcast of that Town Hall on Wednesday, Feb. 1.

Mount Baker School District voters, don’t forget the two levies on your ballot.

Click here to read my story on the levies.

Whatcom County students have until Feb. 19 to design the next reusable bags for Haggen Food & Pharmacy.

The supermarket is sponsoring a contest for all students in kindergarten through 12^th grade.

Entries will be accepted in elementary, middle school and high school categories. They must include artwork or photography.

The first-prize winners’ designs will be featured on three new reusable bags, which will be sold in Haggen stores.

Contest entries may be submitted at Haggen stores in Whatcom County or via Haggen’s page on Facebook.

They will be judged on originality and creativity, prominence of “Northwest Fresh” or prominence of “Bellingham Goes Green.”

Entry deadline is Feb. 19.

Voting will occur Feb. 8 through Feb. 22 on Facebook via a tab for each category.

Click here for details.

A free developmental screening clinic for children who are newborn up to 5 years old is set for Monday, Feb. 13, in Bellingham.

The clinic will be from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at St. Luke’s Community Health Education Center, 3333 Squalicum Parkway.

At the clinic, parents will have an opportunity to speak with an early childhood specialist and receive information on education options for young children.

The clinic is sponsored by the Bellingham School District and the Opportunity Council.

For more information, call 360-676-6470, ext. 4408

Shuksan Middle School is hosting a family night for the community on Wednesday, Feb. 8, in Bellingham.

The free event will include games, learning, networking, dinner and door prizes, organizers said. It runs 6 to 8:30 p.m. at 2713 Alderwood Ave.

After dinner in the cafeteria, parents may go to two of four learning sessions, learn about community resources and connect with other parents.

The sessions will focus on parenting through the teen years; supporting your child’s academic success; gang prevention; and social networking and Internet safety.

Children 5 and older will play games while parents are in the parenting sessions. Free childcare will be provided for infants to 4-year-olds.

Interpreters will be available for Spanish, Punjabi and Vietnamese speakers.

Families from Shuksan, Squalicum, Alderwood, Cordata, Sunnyland, Northern Heights schools, as well as associated feeder schools, are invited.

The night is a collaborative effort of Shuksan Middle School, Bellingham School District, Bellingham Police Department, Communities in Schools, Whatcom Family & Community Network, Whatcom County Health Department, Whatcom Prevention Coalition, and Mercy Housing Northwest.

Details: Call Amy Hockenberry at 360-738-1196.

All seven school districts in Whatcom County have put levy or bond requests before voters on the Feb. 14 ballot.

You already should have gotten your ballot in the mail.

Click on the school district below to read the first three stories I’ve written on the levies in the run-up to the Feb. 14 special election:

• Meridian
• Ferndale
• Bellingham and Lynden

I’m still working on stories about the requests from Blaine, Nooksack Valley and Mount Baker school districts.

Meridian School District is stopping the major remodel of its aging middle school, expecting to lose $12.3 million in state construction money.

That’s because two bills moving through the Legislature would change how the state helps pay for school construction.

The measures, which have bipartisan support, would bar school districts from including Alternative Learning Experiences students who live outside the district in the calculation used for state funding for construction.

Alternative Learning Experiences programs are those in which students are taught off-campus, as with online courses or homeschooling.

“The concern of the Legislature is we’re building space for kids that aren’t coming to the brick and mortar school,” said Gordon Beck, director of school facilities and organization for the state’s Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction.

But the measures assume that such students require no space, said Tim Yeomans, superintendent for the Meridian School District.

That’s not the case for the district’s popular Meridian Parent Partnership Program, often referred to as MP3.

The program lets parents partner with Meridian School District to collaboratively educate their children. It’s like homeschooling, but with a network of professional educators providing curriculum and teaching support.

MP3 has 850 students. About 200 of them come and take classes in the district — in a rented space at Laurel Community Baptist Church large enough to accommodate them and adequate as classroom space. (OSPI has told Meridian to move the program out of the church, which is next to the high school, and into a regular school facility.)

More than 750 of the students in the MP3 program come from outside the Meridian School District, Yeomans said, with more than half of those coming from a district that doesn’t have such a program.

Meridian school officials said they knew about the proposal but didn’t think that it would affect construction projects, such as theirs, that were already in the pipeline.

“It was quite the surprise. We were given no awareness that such a thing was being worked on,” said Tim Yeomans, superintendent for the Meridian School District.

Both measures likely will be passed and approved by the governor. That would in turn stop the July release of state funding from the School Construction Assistance Program.

Two other school districts in the state also would be affected: Eastmont, which could lose $781,078; and Yakima, which could lose $349,565 in state construction help.

When Meridian school officials first heard about the proposal Jan. 3, they initially worried that three planned renovation projects in the district — Meridian High School, putting Irene Reither Primary School and Ten Mile Creek Elementary School into one building, and the middle school — would be hurt.

But the high school and elementary school renovations will continue.

Yeomans was diplomatic about the state’s cost-cutting proposal.

“Our school board realizes that the state has a huge job,” he said. “While they (board members) are disappointed that we will not be able to begin the middle school project this summer, they remain committed to finding a way to undertake what’s required at the middle school in the future.”

Construction is under way on the $25.4 million high school renovation, and the $15.5 million elementary school project is expected to go out to bid this summer. Both projects should be completed by fall 2013.

The local money for those renovations came from a $17 million bond voters approved in February 2010 and $900,000 from the school board. The state contributed $23.1 million.

Meanwhile, the district is asking the state to repay $110,000 Meridian already has spent on the middle school project for costs related to design, conditional use permits, architectural fees and engineering.

“We appreciate the difficulty on them, their board and members of the community,” said Beck of OSPI.

Washington state Sen. Sharon Nelson, D-Vashon, wants to impose a 2 percent tax on the income of millionaires who live in the state to pay for education, with the priority of reducing class sizes in grades K-4.

The legislation, Senate Bill 6482, has been referred to the Ways & Means Committee.

Read the text of the bill by clicking here.

What do you think of this idea?