Each year the Riverview School District hosts a “Welcome Back” event for staff the week prior to the new school year. The event not only shares the  academic forecast for the coming year, but also highlights the many awards, partnering and achievements of numerous staff and programs.

Assistant Superintendent, Dr. Anthony Smith, acknowledged the contributions of teachers Kait Teachout, Ellie Materi, Tony Minaker, Mike Miyoshi, and the Cedarcrest/Tolt Career and Technical Education Team by presenting each of them with the Curriculum Leadership Award: Teachout, who teaches at Cherry Valley Elementary and in the PARADE program, was recognized for her “Science Visioning” and her leadership in building the Science Committee, creating the school-wide “What’s Growing in our School?”, growing the CVE science fair and the creation of a science activity room at the school.

Materi, Stillwater Elementary, was commended for her work on the high-functioning K-5 Social Studies Committee, and her leadership in the design of the K-5 Science Investigations Program.

Minaker, a Tolt language arts teacher, also teaches the elective classes movie-making and story-boarding. He has partnered with fellow Tolt teachers, Mark Klune and Charlene Short, as well as Donna Bielstein at Cedarcrest to bring the Career and Technical Association curriculum offerings to Tolt students.

Cedarcrest engineering teacher Mike Miyoshi was recognized for the strong programs he’s built in engineering and computer programming at the district, and his leadership of the school’s FIRST Robotics team last year.

The CTE team, Smith said, has dramatically increased the partnering and articulation of its programs with the middle school.

New teachers were also welcomed into the district. They include: at Carnation Elementary School, Kelly Mershon, Erika Navarro and Carin Trygg; at Tolt Middle School, Daniel Mershon and Yaniv Elkaras; at the Riverview Learning Center, Paul Spatafore; at Cedarcrest High School, Jeffry Wehr, Kyle Thompson, Davin Henrikson, Deb Walters, Garrett Mirsky and James Conrick; at Stillwater Elementary,  Emily Christensen and Jake Hammons; and at Cherry Valley Elementary, Katie Evangelisto, Amy LaBrie and Gail Eby-Martin.

Smith also shared some district success statistics at the event. For example, he said 85 percent of graduates continue their education at two- or four-year institutions, and the dropout rate is 1.2 percent. Also, he said between 75 and 96 percent of district students are meeting the state achievement standards, and 100 students participated in the district’s summer school program. About 10 percent of students have graduated from the district’s alternative programs, CLIP and PARADE.