Sound of music in tune at Seconday Academy for Success

Under the auspices of a new nonprofit, “The Music Project,” vocalists from the Secondary Academy for Success (SAS) will perform next month at the Children’s Hospital “Festival of Trees” fund-raising celebration in Seattle.

The jazz-and-blues music project at the school, headlined by well-known professional jazz stylist Bernadette Bascom, is gaining in notice and popularity. Students performed music of Elton John at a school concert, then repeated for the public at the Barnes & Noble bookstore in Woodinville. The Children’s Hospital sponsoring volunteers were so taken with the SAS project earlier this year during a Motown Evening at the Northshore Performing Arts Center that they invited the teenagers to sing for the children.

The Music Project will stage a fund-raiser Dec. 4 at the Hollywood Schoolhouse in Woodinville in hopes of bringing in enough money to operate the program at SAS and possibly other district schools during the current school year.

More details on that at HYPERLINK “http://www.townofgrace.org” www.musicpojectfoundation.org in case you’d like to go or donate items to auction. Jim Geiszler at (206) 293-9327 is another good source.

Ramping up

Construction workers are months ahead of schedule on the long-awaited freeway access ramp into the combined campus of Cascadia Community College and University of Washington, Bothell. In a few weeks, those of us who frequent State Route 522 through downtown Bothell on our way to Interstate 405 or Woodinville should be able to figure out the ultimate configuration of the access lanes to and from the campus.

Richard Penny, the new vice chancellor for advancement at UW-B, said that the new south access to the campus should be in use in time for classes next fall. The city had imposed enrollment restrictions on the two colleges until such time as faculty, students and employees could reach their campus destinations other than driving through downtown Bothell, on to Beardslee Boulevard and into the heretofore singular access into the campus.

Depending on legislative funding, Penny said UW-B is expected to grow from the present enrollment of 2,200 to 5,000 students by 2018 with Cascadia reaching 4,000 by 2020.

Now a four-year school, UW-B presently offers courses leading to six majors. The number of majors will increase significantly with the proposed expansion — reaching as many as 20 by next fall in the fields of engineering, math, science and technology. All of this will require more faculty as well as more classrooms.

Just think, the UW-Bothell was launched 18 years ago with 85 students enrolled and taking classes in rented office space in Canyon Park.

We hope the Legislature will see fit to fund this growth to 10,000 students before launching a third UW branch operation in the Everett-Snohomish County region. We’ve heard it would require $1 billion to duplicate facilities and programs that have not been allowed to reach their potential here in Bothell.

John Hughes was owner-publisher of the Northshore Citizen from 1961 to 1988 and is active in local nonprofit organizations.

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