Mount Baker Monthly Update

Welcome back, Mount Baker families! For those that I have not had the pleasure of meeting yet, I am Nick Perigo and I have the great honor as serving as your interim superintendent for the 2024-2025 school year.

As mentioned in last week's message, the District updates will look a little different this year. While this update is coming out on the last Wednesday of the month, all future updates will come on the third Wednesday of each the month.

With the change in communication frequency, the hope is that the information delivered will be more pertinent and cover a wider variety of topics. All updates will include a superintendent's message, updates from the schools, co-curricular news, and information about finance and operations.

Finally, I want to wrap up by saying a big thank you to Mount Baker staff for their efforts in being prepared to welcome back all of our students to the 2024-2025 school year. I speak for all of our colleagues when I share just how excited we are to have the students back! Here's a to a great school year!

Sincerely,

Nick Perigo

Interim Superintendent

This section will keep families updated on some of the happenings at our schools. Today was a great first day for our first through twelfth grade students! The students returned to school eager to spend time with friends and learn with our great Mount Baker staff.

The transition from summer schedules to the routines in school are different for every student. A big thank you to all our families for the hard work being put in at home to ensure student success in the classroom. Thank you!

This section of the monthly update will highlight many of the great co-curricular activities going on around the Mount Baker School District.

Quite a few Mount Baker Students were hard at work at the Northwest Washington Fair earlier this month. Participating in the fair helps build a sense of community while also providing students with life-long skills.

A special shoutout to Mr. Rightmire, Ms. Davis, and Mrs. Jones for their hard work and dedication in support our FFA students.

Pictured are two Mount Baker FFA members at the NW Washington Fair on Tuesday, August 13.

Fall athletics are under way with most practices having started earlier this week. The athletic opportunities at Mount Baker provide students with experiences in either individual or team sports. This season is shaping up to be another great one for our student-athletes.

Thank you to Athletic Director Lepper and all our coaches for their continued dedication to our athletic programs.

Some members of our MBHS volleyball team are pictured. Photo credit: Janell Summer Photography.

An update from director of finance, Brian Fraser:

As previously noted, the board passed a budget that has more revenue than expenditures for the 24-25 School Year. As we begin the year, the challenge is to ensure we live within that budget. Also, while that does fix a persistent problem that led us to this point with our finances, we still have work to do in order to rebuild our fund balance to sustainable levels for operation.

The next milestone is the end of the fiscal school year on August 31st. After that time, I will be working to close the books for the year and get actual figures of revenue and expenditure for the 23-24 school year. Those ending figures will inform the work ahead and we won’t know until the end of October what more adjustments may be necessary. The changes we made mid-year should make a positive difference in that ending balance, which will help us to build a sustainable future plan. More coming on that at the end of October.

• Monday, September 2: No school, observance of Labor Day
• Wednesday, September 4: Wednesday 90 minute late arrivals begin (secondary starts at 9:25 and elementary starts at 10:35).
• Thursday, September 12: School Board meeting at 6:00p.
• Friday, September 20: FFA Salmon BBQ from 5:00p to 7:00p.
• Thursday, September 26: School Board meeting at 6:00p.
• All athletic schedules can be found on GoBakerAthletics.com.