News & Announcements

The April Community Connections Newsletter is now available. Click here to read!

After an extensive interview process, Cheney Public Schools is pleased to announce that Coretta Hoffman has been selected as the next assistant principal of Cheney High School, pending Board approval. The interview process included representatives from several stakeholder groups—district administration, staff, and students—who interacted and engaged with each candidate throughout the process. 

Cheney High School staff and district leadership collaborated to lead each candidate through a comprehensive interview process, including a student-led interview where CHS students were able to interact and engage with each candidate. Following this process, Hoffman was selected as the best fit to join the administrative staff at Cheney High School. 

“I am extremely excited to announce that Coretta Hoffman will be joining us as our new assistant principal, beginning officially on July 1st!” said CHS Principal Brett Hale. “Coretta has been a highly effective assistant principal at Mead High School for the past 10 years. Prior to that, she was a math instructional coach in the Moses Lake School District. Coretta brings a wealth of experience in instructional leadership and professional development, and has a strong reputation for supporting and serving students, parents, and teachers. She is known for her strong relationship skills, and tireless work ethic. She is going to be a tremendous addition to our team!”

Hoffman will arrive at Cheney High School with nearly 30 years of experience in education; for the last decade, Hoffman has been an assistant principal in the Mead School District with a wide range of responsibilities. These include, but are not limited to: supervision and evaluation of teaching and support staff through instructional leadership and professional development, building and maintaining positive relationships with the greater school community, and improving school performance by developing and implementing data-driven instructional strategies. Before becoming an assistant principal, Hoffman spent 19 years as a math teacher in schools across Washington state. She also served as a secondary mathematics instructional coach for the Moses Lake School District from 2005-11. In this role, she collaborated with district leaders to align math curriculum with state standards, ensuring consistency across grade levels and schools. Hoffman earned her Bachelor’s of Science in Mathematics from Linfield College, with a Master of Arts in Teaching from the University of Puget Sound and an Administrator Certificate from EWU.

“I am excited to join the team at Cheney High School, a team that is student-centered and puts student connection first,” Hoffman said. “That is where my heart and passion lies–building connections with students and staff. I am thrilled to be able to continue supporting that mission in my work with Cheney High School.”

 

Cheney High School Civics and Humanities Teacher Joy Robinette knows a thing or two about writing curriculum. A self-described history and curriculum nerd, Robinette moonlights as a contract curriculum writer, so when she learned about a curriculum development opportunity through the Annenberg Classroom at the National Council for the Social Studies conference in Boston last November, it was a no-brainer for her to apply.

Annenberg Classroom is an online collection of free classroom resources for teaching the United States Constitution. The free resources include over 65 videos on constitutional concepts and Supreme Court cases, as well as games, lesson plans, timelines, downloadable books, a glossary, and a Constitution guide.

“Annenberg Classroom puts out a new film each year for Constitution Day,” said Andrea Reidell, the Director of Outreach and Curriculum at the Leonore Annenberg Institute for Civics at the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. “As part of that process, we solicit requests for proposals from teachers to submit a proposal for a lesson plan that goes with the film. We ask them to include primary source documents because we want to connect students to think critically about source perspectives, and to be able to practice some of these critical thinking skills.”

For the past three years, Annenberg Classroom has paid teachers–not curriculum writers–to create lesson plans that align with a film released on Constitution Day. Why? Reidell says teachers are the experts on how to teach, so, teachers across the country are invited to submit a lesson plan proposal each year. Reidell, along with a team of judges comprised of retired teachers and social studies administrators, read through each proposal and choose three to be featured on Annenberg Classroom.

Robinette has found creative ways to engage her students since she began her career in education just over a decade ago. Instead of just reading about history in a book, Robinette has created engaging and multi-faceted lessons that encourage students to use claim-evidence reasoning and actively go through an inquiry process.

“I discovered that [writing curriculum] was so fun to put these really interesting lessons together for kids to get invested in,” Robinette said. “I think writing lesson plans is one of my favorite things to do…It’s the most fun when you get kids interested like that because they start asking questions. Those questions lead to deeper learning and more learning, and then I get to learn with them.”

Robinette was familiar with the Annenberg Classroom because she has utilized it as a teaching resource several times before. “I just love their mission of trying to create civics curriculum that reaches kids at all levels,” she said. “It’s something that’s not all the snazzy for the kids, but to try to get it to them in a way that is more interesting I think is really hard, and also really important.” Then, when she viewed the documentary about the Eighth Amendment that was meant to be the inspiration for this year’s competition lesson plans, she was fascinated.

“I just thought, I love writing lesson plans and this documentary they have is great!” Robinette said. “I would love to use it in my class. So I just wrote [the lesson plans] with that in mind, with my own students in mind.”

Robinette submitted her proposal in late December, and by mid-January she was notified that she had been selected as one of three winners across the country. The next step was to develop the lesson plans including content, discussion guides, handouts, schedules, presentations, anything and everything to be used in conjunction with teaching and learning. Three weekends and over 30 hours of work was dedicated to creating two weeks worth of curriculum that will be featured on Annenberg Classroom later this year.

“My passion is writing curriculum,” Robinette said. “I try to find new ways to get kids interested. If I can share that with other teachers, then that’s even better.”

Along with being selected to create a lesson plan for Annenberg Classroom, the win comes with an opportunity to lead workshops across the country. It is part of their professional development, Reidell says, and Annenberg Classroom offers paid opportunities for winning teachers to engage with other teachers, walk them through the lesson, and talk about their process. Robinette has already been invited to attend a conference in Southern California to guide teachers through her curriculum.

“When I go to that conference and teach that seminar, I’ll be teaching it with other people from Teach Democracy and Street Law–which are both amazing programs–and I’ll get to work with them, learn from them, and then bring it back here,” Robinette said. “I’m the PLC (Professional Learning Community) lead, and I’m also a teacher mentor here, so one of my favorite things to do is just share this stuff and get it to as many kids as possible.”

Robinette’s lesson plan will be available on Annenberg Classroom next month. Visit Annenbergclassroom.org/lessonplans/ to learn more!

 

 

 

 

 

Cheney Public Schools has selected Garco Construction/Integrus Architecture to lead the progressive design-build project for the new Craig Road Elementary School. Following an extensive selection and award process that spanned over two months, the Garco Construction/Integrus Architecture progressive design-build team was announced as the highest scored finalist.

The scoring and selection process began on Jan. 14 with a non-mandatory pre-proposal meeting, hosted by Turner & Townsend Heery. Dozens of qualified professionals attended, and six statements of qualifications were submitted in response to the request for qualifications issued to the public early January.

The selection committee–which includes voting members Superintendent Ben Ferney, Finance Director Jamie Reed, Maintenance & Operations Director Rich Brown, Nutrition Services Director LJ Klinkenberg along with non-voting members Jonathan Miller (Program Manager, Turner & Townsend Heery), David Beaudine (Vice President, Turner & Townsend Heery), and Lisa Lundy (Project Manager, Turner & Townsend Heery)—shortlisted three teams to the advance to the next phase of the selection process.

Interactive Proprietary Meetings took place on Feb. 19th, and finalists were scored based on their ability to solicit relevant information for the project, ability to collaborate with the Selection Committee, and their proposed approaches to meet the needs of the District on the Craig Road Elementary project. 

Garco Construction/Integrus Architecture emerged as the highest scoring finalist and was announced as the selected progressive design-build team on March 18.

Ed specs will begin Monday, March 24, with design work beginning in April. Construction is scheduled to begin in March 2026.

Moody’s Ratings (Moody’s) affirmed Cheney Public Schools Aa3 rating for its 2025 Unlimited Tax General Obligation Bonds, citing strong financial management and projected growth in the district.

Moody’s ratings rationale reflects continued enrollment growth along with Cheney Public Schools’ location within the growing regional economy, including unprecedented growth in the community of Airway Heights. The rating further takes into account the district’s stable financial position, conservative budgeting, and a voter approved EP&O and Capital Projects levies. The district’s financial health is further supported by the Washington State School Bond Guarantee Program, rated Aaa by Moody’s, which provides additional security for voter-approved bonds.

These strong ratings will allow Cheney Public Schools to secure lower interest rates when issuing bonds for an estimated $33 million for school improvements, ultimately saving taxpayers money.

Superintendent Ben Ferney emphasized the importance of this recognition, stating, “We are proud that Moody’s has reaffirmed our strong financial standing. These ratings reflect the trust our community has placed in us to manage resources wisely and continue providing quality education for our students.”

For more information about Cheney Public Schools and the November 2024 Bond, please click here.