Seth Weeks wants to adjust attitudes as Wahluke Board member

The Royal Register News

by Royal Register Editor & Ted Escobar
| November 7, 2011 5:15 AM

MATTAWA - Seth Weeks is not just running for the Wahluke School Board. He's running with passion.

Weeks sees aspects of the school system that need fixing or adjustment, and together they add up to attitude.

Weeks's competition for position No. 3 on the board is Lorraine Jenne. Voters will make their decision on Nov. 8.

Weeks remembers better times at Wahluke High School, from which he graduated in 2001. Football took third in state his junior year, soccer won a state championship, and the school was high-level competitive in all sports,

The reason Weeks wants to get that back is that the attitudes students have on the field of competition are the same attitudes they carry into the classroom.

"It's going to take a different mindset to get the school going in the right direction," he said.

Another return to the past Weeks hopes to promote is a school system staffed with quality, veteran teachers. He's ired by the notion that young college graduates have come here for a year or two and moved on.

"They'll train here, but they won't live here," he said. "There is no consistency (for the students) as far as staff goes. Turnover is huge here in Mattawa. We're a great training school."

"We have had three superintendents in the last 10 years," Weeks added, "about 15 principals and three or four athletic directors."

Weeks remembers seeing the same faces on the teaching staff during his 12 years at Wahluke. So do his two sisters.

"We had the same first-grade teachers, the same second-grade teachers and so on," he said.

Weeks is aware the schools were reconfigured this year to satisfy the state superintendent of public instruction's need for change in a failing system. He wonders how it will turn out.

"I'm skeptical about it because I don't know, but it's in line with what I'm thinking. The kids will be in the same buildings through the sixth grade. That's consistency."

Weeks doesn't know Superintendent Aaron Chavez well, but he likes his work so far. The question he has is how long Chavez will stay.

"He's a young guy," Weeks said.

Chavez recently instituted a rule in the district that staff speak in English at all times so they can model the language, especially for English language learners. Weeks is on board with that. He would even suggest grouping ELL to give them more attention.

However, Weeks is not one who would like to see Hispanic students drop Spanish. It is an asset that is already in place. Weeks, himself, speaks Spanish.

However it's done, Weeks said, the ELL students need a maximum effort from staff. He has experienced athletes "who couldn't read" graduating from high school and says "That's not right."

Weeks was a crack wrestler for Wahluke High. He went on to Yakima Valley Community College and wrestled two more years. He is now the head coach at Royal High.

Because of the death of his father - single dad of three school kids - during his senior year, Weeks made decisions he might not have made otherwise.

After a year and a half at YVCC, Weeks felt a need to come home and run the family farm. He also became the Wahluke High wrestling coach.

Then, two years later, Weeks decided to finish his AA degree in horticulture and returned to YVCC. He wrestled his last year of eligibility.

Weeks came back to the farm, which has grown from 40 acres in 2003 to 125 now, and tried to get his coaching assignment back. He was turned down. When the same position at Royal came open, he applied.

Meanwhile, Weeks is the leader of the Mattawa Braves kids community wrestling program. He's had that post 10 years, taking over for his deceased father, who had founded the program 10 years prior. He may soon be faced with the sports irony of ironies.

"Next year I may be coaching (Royal kids) against some (Wahluke) kids I've been training since they were five years old," he noted. "It's going to be strange being on the other side of the floor."

This is Weeks's first shot at elective office. He's hopeful, but he has no idea how things will go. Whatever the outcome, he will continue to support the schools individually and as vice president of the Wahluke Enhancement Organization.

"I'm going to lead by example, getting the community behind the school district," he said.