Our area-oriented lifestyle magazine continues to provide relevant, timely and informative content, and we believe the addition of unique targeted events will enhance the community further. One such event is the second annual Education Expo: A Syllabus for Success, which will highlight educational options to help parents guide a child’s learning journey from preschool into college. The event takes place on Thursday, January 19, from 4 to 8 p.m. at Skyline High School. This free event welcomes parents to hear directly from exhibitors and speakers on a variety of subjects and programs. Topics include brain development, special enrichment programs and financial aid. Collecting these organizations in one location makes it easier for parents to research individual programs best for their individual circumstances. We urge you to join us.

It is not a secret that strong schools, both public and private, are an asset to any community. We are proud to work with many fine institutions and bring to light how well they serve this area. We believe our magazine is a content provider and our events are a conduit between the magazine and our readers.

Let’s all make 2012 a healthy and fulfilling year for us individually and as a community. ❖

Fred & Mardi Nystrom

With the costs of attending post–high school technical or academic institutions climbing and household incomes not keeping pace, there’s increased interest in applying for financial aid—and a great deal of confusion over the process. That need not be the case. Here’s what you need to know about applying for financial aid for your student.

Financial aid comes from two main sources: grants and scholarships, which do not have to be repaid; and self-help aid, which includes loans that must be repaid and work-study programs.

The key to most financial aid comes from filing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). The application is a series of questions designed to gather data about par- ents’ and students’ income and assets, the number of people living in the household and the number attending college, as well as the age of the parents. The information collected does not include home equity or value of retirement accounts.

All applications are judged in the same way under guidelines set by Congress. To complete the electronic filing, students must apply for a PIN to use as Federal Student Aid identification at www.pin.ed.gov. It’s a good idea for a parent to also get a PIN to use when signing for the student and verifying the financial information submitted.

Before starting the FAFSA, visit the site at www.fafsa.ed.gov to review the materials needed to complete the questions. Be aware that there are look-alike sites on the Web that will try to confuse you, so use only the .ed.gov site, and not a .com site.

Once the form is completed it can be signed with the PIN and submitted. You have the ability to come back later and amend any of the answers and resubmit the form.

Each year the earliest you can submit the form is the first day of January for the following school year.

The next step is the receipt of the Student Aid Report (SAR). This report, which is also submitted to the schools or universities listed in the FAFSA application, contains a valu- able number: the Expected Family Contribution (EFC), which is the dollar amount the family is expected to be able to contribute to the education of that student in that specific year. All submissions are treated the same way. The schools that receive the SAR will use the EFC in ranking the students for receipt of financial aid.

The EFC can be a source of confusion, since it is just one part of a formula and requires each family to take another step. The formula to remember is: The cost of attendance (COA) at each school minus the EFC equals the financial aid the student qualifies for from that school. Remember, the cost of attending is much more than tuition and books. It includes those, plus lodging, meals, fees and transportation—all direct and indirect costs. You can get the COA from the websites of the schools you are applying to.

How does the formula work? If your student is applying to Bellevue College and the school’s COA is $15,000 and your EFC is $18,000, your student would not qualify for financial aid. If your student is also applying to Washington State University and WSU’s COA is $23,000, your student would qualify for $5,000 in aid. The net cost to your student would be $15,000 at Bellevue College and $18,000 at WSU. In many cases the net cost of attending a higher- priced state or private college can end up being very close to the cost of attending a community school. But you must take the steps to compute the net cost to attend each college.

Assuming that your student is accepted at each school he or she applies to, the next step is the receipt of an award letter from each school. Read each one carefully, and compare and contrast. The award letter will spell out what your student is being offered in grants, loans and/or work-study programs. Obviously, grants are preferable because they don’t have to be paid back. Federal Pell and Stafford loans come with repayment programs following graduation.

If one school is your student’s first choice and its offer is not as good as other schools’, you can call the financial aid office and explore their flexibility to change the combination of grants and loans. Due to the increase in students applying for financial aid, your student may not be offered all the aid he or she qualifies for. In that case, you can qualify for a PLUS loan to fill in the gap.

It is valuable to complete the FAFSA even if you do not think your student qualifies for financial aid. The form is the universal way to compare and rank students, and is even used when institutions are looking to award merit-based scholarships.

You must refile a FAFSA each year. If your family situation changes it can make a big difference in the amount your student may qualify to receive. The addition of a new child or the enrollment of a second child in college, for example, will change your EFC.

To summarize, these are the steps you need to keep in mind in regard to student financial aid:

❉ Start with loans available from the federal government, then turn to the private sector.

❉ Complete a FAFSA even if you don’t think your student qualifies for aid.

❉ Submit a FAFSA as soon as possible after January 1.

❉ Send a renewal FAFSA each year.

❉ Inform the school’s financial aid office if your financial circumstances change.

❉ Attend the Education Expo on January 19 to hear more on the subject. ❖

See the comparison chart of select schools at the end of this article.

for parents with a child looking ahead to higher education, it’s vitally important to know what Pacific Northwest universities, colleges and technical schools are looking for when admitting new students.

Admission to college has always carried with it a little mystery, a lingering sense of the unknown. How is it that one high school student with a 3.75 grade point average is accepted to a well- respected college while another with the same average is not? In preparing this article, we solicited comments from 16 public and private colleges in Washington, Idaho and Utah to find out what the admissions teams are looking for, and along the way discovered some surprises.

overview

Students are sending more admis- sions applications than ever. A generation ago, the advice to students was to apply to three colleges: one “wish” or “reach” college and two in-state “safe” schools where acceptance was likely. Now, students are applying to upwards of 20 colleges. Applications at the University of Washington have risen from 15,995 in 2005 to 24,539 in 2011, an increase of more than 50 percent. At the same time, there are more than 4,000 degree-granting colleges and universities in the United States. According to the National Association for College Admission Counseling, the percentage of applicants who were offered admission was 67 percent in the fall of 2009.

Advice to parents

As with most advice, it’s important to understand the concept of balance. On one hand, admissions staff will tell you to make certain your student takes the most rigorous curriculum available, such as honors, advanced placement (AP), International Baccalaureate (IB) or Running Start classes. On the other hand, admissions staff are also concerned about over-involved parents who fill their children’s days with soccer, music lessons and club activities, so that the kids have no time to relax and enjoy high school. Find a balance, and remember that you are there to guide and help, but it is your child’s journey and not your own.

Advice to students

Look at your high school years in terms of a personal timetable.

Freshman year: Even though you may not know if you are college bound, take classes that are of interest to you and find one or two activities outside class that you enjoy.

Sophomore year: Take challenging classes in the five core areas—of English, science, social studies, math and foreign languages. Continue with one or two activities. Junior year: In the fall, take the PTSA and begin attending the in-school presentations by visiting college reps. Introduce yourself to the career counselors at your school and use them as mentors. In the spring take the SAT and/or ACT college entrance exam. Plan to spend time in the spring and summer visiting colleges or technical schools to get a feel for where you are comfortable.

Senior year: Don’t slack off. Continue taking courses in the five core academic areas. Begin to apply for college admissions in the fall. Most applications are due between November and January. Apply for free financial aid after January 1, using the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, form. Start hunting for scholarships.

Also consider several other issues. Your personal email address may tell admissions and future employers more than you want them to know. By the time you are a high school freshman, you should change your email address to some- thing very vanilla. Replace the hotmama@hotmail.com with first name. last name@hotmail.com and stick with this for all your school-or job-related interactions. Begin to cull any photos of you on Facebook or other social networking sites that show you misbehaving. You need to control how you are seen and per- ceived; do not let friends posting photos do it for you.

Finally, learn to write using real English. Admissions staff will downgrade applications where texting style is used. Texting abbreviations may be fine among your friends, but persistent use in an application will help ensure that you continue to live at home.

Key information from the admissions staff survey

❉ If you had lower grades during high school for a time, address this directly and explain what you have learned from the experience.

❉ Use the essay portion of the application to explain who you are beyond your GPA and activities. Flesh out personal information so the staff gets a feeling for you as an individual.

❉ Leave the thesaurus on the bookshelf. Don’t waste your time and theirs trying to sound sophisti-cated. Instead, be genuine and use your own voice. Don’t try to be clever or dramatic if that is not you. Write like it matters, not as if you are texting.

❉ Visit the colleges you have an interest in attending. Don’t make a selection just because a parent or family member went there. Try to visit when school is in session so you can sit in on a class, talk to students and see if you are comfortable there.

The following are the answers to the questions about admissions we posed to selected colleges and universities in the West. If you would like to go directly to the school’s admissions page on their site, simply click on their logo.

By Jo Porter

Each school day, the Issaquah School District Transportation Department transports about 8,500 students on 150 buses to 23 schools on routes covering 7,200 miles. Optimal routes are designed by experts using complex computer systems and gPS data. A typical run wastes no time between picking up and delivering high school, middle school, early-start and late-start elementary school, and half-day kindergarten students. The bell times are so interdependent that starting secondary schools just 15 minutes later or dismissing elementary schools 15 minutes earlier without shifting the entire system would require an extra 41 buses costing $4,242,000 plus an additional $1,123,006 per year to operate the less efficient routes. (Not to mention the expense of an extra facility to house the buses and the effort to recruit an additional 41 bus drivers.) The operational cost alone of such a schedule change represents about 15 teaching positions! We never lose sight of the fact that we are here to educate students. That means our drivers put the utmost priority on getting students safely to and from school. What you may not realize, however, is how vigorously we try to ensure that our bus operations spare every penny possible for classroom instruction.

The state funds only about half of the district’s actual transportation costs, which means we bridge the $3.2 million annual shortfall through local levy dollars that would other- wise go to schools and classrooms. Because the state’s funding formula is based on a head count of students riding our buses, we can maximize our revenue by getting every regular rider on the bus during count days.

In past years, drivers counted every student rider for the state during a specific week in October. This year, there is a new methodology: Drivers will count student riders every day for one month in the fall, winter, and spring during the morning and afternoon routes. The state will use the three consecutive days of highest ridership during each season to determine the district’s overall transportation funding, so it’s very important that all regular riders take the bus to and from school whenever possible. This has the added benefit of reducing gridlock on and around school campuses before and after school.

The flip side of maximizing reve- nue is maximizing what we do with it. On top of underfunding school transportation, the state over the past three years has cut more than $16 million from the district’s annual operations budget—a gigantic hit. That means it’s more important than ever for the Transportation Department to run efficiently to keep dollars flowing to classrooms. While several communities have been directly affected by becoming “walking areas” (the state expects students who live within one mile of school to walk and provides no bus funding for them), every family feels the effect daily. How? School start and dismissal times are so tightly interwoven around efficient bus routes that they could hold water.

Please remember: get all regular riders on the bus whenever possible, and never hesitate to contact us at 425.837.6330 if you have questions about routes or anything else throughout the school year.

By Susan Lawrence

Helping loved ones receive an education is a major goal for most Americans. Today’s choices of education savings accounts can be complex. To make this a bit easier, below is a brief summary of some savings accounts available. Below are highlights of the three types of accounts:

529 college savings plans

There are two types of 529 plans: prepaid tuition plans and savings plans. Prepaid tuition plans allow you to pay future tuition costs now, based on today’s rates. Most prepaid tuition plans are sponsored by state governments and have limited enrollment periods. Many state governments guarantee investments in the prepaid tuition plans.

MAXIMUM CONTRIBUTION: $375,000 per student; varies by state.

WITHDRAWALS: Must be used to pay for qualified higher education expenses or will be subject to penalties.

TAXATION: Although contributions are not tax deductible, the distributions are tax free as long as they are used to pay for qualified higher education expenses. Earnings in the account grow tax free.

BENEFICIARIES: These can be changed within immediate family, including cousins. NOTE: You can use one state’s plan to pay for college expenses in other states.

INVESTMENT OPTIONS: A menu of mutual funds selected by the state plan.
For more information on the Washington State guaranteed Education Tuition, or GET, prepaid tuition plan, see www.get.wa.gov.

Coverdell Education Savings Accounts (Education IRAs)

MAXIMUM CONTRIBUTION: $2,000 per child until the child’s 18th birthday, except for a special-needs child. (Your adjusted gross income must be less than $110,000 if you file as an individual, $220,000 for a joint return.)

WITHDRAWALS: Can be used to pay for primary, secondary or higher education or will be subject to penalties. Distribution is mandatory when the beneficiary reaches age 30.

TAXATION: Although contributions are not tax deductible, the distributions are tax free as long as the distributions are taken to pay for Internal Revenue Service–qualified educational expenses prior to the beneficiary reaching age 30. Earnings in the account grow tax free.

BENEFICIARIES: Can be changed if the new student is not yet age 30 and the original student gives consent.

INVESTMENT OPTIONS: Various, at the discretion of the owner.

Custodial Accounts (UGMAs and UTMAs)

MAXIMUM CONTRIBUTION: Unlimited.

TAXATION: gains, dividends and income are taxed each year to the owner of the account at his or her tax rate.

WITHDRAWALS: Rules vary by state, but withdrawals can be made for any reason at any time without a tax penalty.

BENEFICIARIES: Cannot be changed, but, based upon the state, once the beneficiary is between ages 18 and 21 the owner of the account changes to whoever is the beneficiary.

INVESTMENT OPTIONS: Various, at the discretion of the owner.

Education savings accounts have different features, with different pros and cons. To know the best fit for your situation, consult with a financial advisor. ❖
elping loved ones receive an education is a major

People who have lived for  while in the Cascade foothills area realize that we see some snow during the winter months. The lower elevations in and around Issaquah can receive up to a foot of snow, with greater amounts on the Sammamish Plateau and surrounding hills. For new residents, however, this snow (and the resultant chaos) comes as a jarring surprise. No matter how long you’ve lived here, we hope the following tips and tricks will save you time, money and frozen feet.

1. Early Prepration: As soon as the leaves have turned their bright fall colors it is time to put the “winter bag” in the trunk of your car. What winter bag? Supply each car with a duffel bag full of winter-driving emergency gear and accessories, leave the bags there until spring and hope that you don’t have to use them.

Each winter bag should contain: ❉ chains, cables or other traction devices ❉ tarp for ground cover when putting on the traction devices ❉ flashlight (with spare batteries)—snow seems to come more often after dark ❉ gloves—waterproof and warm are best ❉ blanket—in case you have to stay in your car for an extended period of time ❉ boots with traction soles and heavy socks—high-heeled shoes and tasseled loafers are not useful for walking in the snow ❉ warm jackets—ones that will fit everyone from the largest household driver to the most petite ❉ food and water for 12 hours, more if you generally have children in the car ❉ flares—if you want people to see you rather than run into you

2. Traction Devices Are Your Friend: Take them home to the warmth of your garage and have every driver in the family practice installing the devices so they can do it when alone. Practice a few times wearing gloves, and for the final test turn off the lights and install the devices using only a flashlight for illumination.

3. Plan Alternative Routes and SafePlaces: Think of other routes home. Know the priority snowplow routes covering your area. In Sammamish, go to ci.sammamish. wa.us/snowroute.aspx and print their Snow & Ice Routes map. In Issaquah, go toci.issaquah.wa.us/Files/snowplowmap.pdf. Put copies of both maps in all vehicles.

4. Beware of False Confidence: It’s fascinating how many of the abandoned cars at the bottom of hilly streets are more expensive models. getting behind the wheel
of a luxury car does not guarantee your ability to get up a snow- or ice-covered hill. With chains, it’s a breeze, but without them that car is just a very expensive toboggan and quite likely to be hit by others, towed and impounded.

5. If You Have Run Out of Options: If you must leave your car, get it out of the travel portion of the roadway. If it’s left in the driving lanes it likely will be ticketed and possibly towed and impounded.
Now go get those traction devices and practice putting them on. ❖

For those who like to race down snowy slopes, the Eastside is one of the best places in the country to live, thanks to the quick access to winter skiing and snowboarding options. Developing proficiency in either winter activity extends residents’ ability to keep active year-round.

Snoqualmie Pass and Crystal Mountain are both easy drives and provide facilities and terrain to lure beginners and keep long-time snow-sport fans happy and challenged.

It is never too early to get started. Crystal Mountain offers Kids Club lessons for children ages 4 through 10. There is also a Parent Tot instruction program for adults with children ages 2 to 3. For more complete information, visit crystalmountainresort.com.

Snoqualmie has the advantage of hosting a variety of private ski/board schools that can provide bus transporta- tion to and from Snoqualmie Central. Check the Snoqualmie Summit website, summitatsnoqualmie. com, for classes and transportation options for midday and evening skiing. It is never too late to start, either. The Issaquah Ski School provides seven weeks of classes and chaperoned bus transportation for as little as $285, plus equipment rental if needed and lift passes. Their buses pick up and deliver kids back to Discovery Elementary, Issaquah Valley Elementary and the Renton Highland QFC parking lot. For more information, visit issaquahskischool.org.

Would you be surprised to learn that each year more than 120 million pounds of butter, 20 million pounds of cottage cheese and 20 million pounds of sour cream are produced behind those colorful murals?

DARIGOLD is one of the oldest and largest manufacturing facilities in the community, and in three articles over several issues, we will be exploring the interesting stories behind their impressive ability to produce 160 MILLION POUNDS of high-quality food in their Front Street facility while hardly a soul knows what’s happening inside.

Starting With Butter

Much of the cream produced by Darigold farmer-owners’ pampered cows is delivered to the Issaquah plant in the five to 12 tanker trucks that arrive at the plant each day. Once unloaded, it’s transformed into butter by the Simon Freres butter churn. While Darigold butter has been a source of local pride since 1918, in 2003 Darigold installed the larg- est European vacuum-style churn ever imported to America. The churn can produce more than 50,000 pounds of butter per hour.

Vacuum chambers on butter churns have been popular in Europe for some time, but the dairies in the U.S. have been hesitant to invest in the technology. Darigold is one of the industry innovators, embracing the vacuum technology.

The special action of the Simon Freres butter churn ensures that excess air is removed from the butterfat particles and the moisture is thoroughly emulsified. The resulting butter has a velvety, smooth, spreadable consistency. Baked goods are more consistent and well shaped because of the butter’s excellent distribution characteristics. It also has a higher melting point, so there’s a longer and more stable window of time for the butter to hold that magical state of sauce-like suspension so prized in classical cooking. When cooks make the precious “golden oil” of clarified butter, the compressed milk solids fall evenly and tightly to the bottom, allowing for easy and efficient separation.

The process is not complicated. The cream is first pasteurized and chilled and then fed into a long, screened cylinder with a rotating drum fitted with beaters down the center. The cream is whipped into a foam, which gradually causes the fat particles to shed liquid and cling together. Augers compress these sticky, grainy solids and force out any residual liquid, which is collected and sold as fresh Darigold buttermilk. What remains in the churn is pure, raw butter. It is squeezed through a perforated plate into long, noodle shapes and run through a vacuum chamber. This is where the magic hap- pens. Without going through a vacuum chamber, butter holds an average of 4 to 5 percent air. Vacuuming the butter solids results in a product that is dense, well emulsified and less than 1 percent air.

In the next step, the butter goes through a machine known as the “butter boat” or “butter silo,” where the butter reaches yellow, creamy perfection: solid but not hard, creamy but not melted. Each turn of the paddle forms soft ripples and luscious waves of butter. It’s what dreams are made of. The cows would be so proud.

Finally, the fresh butter is pumped to one of several packaging lines, where it is pressed into the desired shape, from individual pats to 55-pound boxes. The butter is then safely sealed and delivered to your neighborhood restaurant, bakery or grocery store. ❖

❉ By Libby Hirshberg
I don’t know when I became interested in raising chickens, but I’ve always enjoyed having a vegetable garden, picking berries and foraging for mush- rooms, so it just seemed natural to get some chickens. I mentioned my interest to my husband, Bill, and the journey began. Four years later, I still smile when I collect eggs, and I continue to talk to “the girls” each time I see them.

It all started with Bill giving me a photo of a chicken coop as a gift! It was kismet that shortly after receiving the unusual gift, The grange had a “Chick Day” where you could get five free fluffy chicks if you bought the starter supplies for raising chickens. We came home with a variety of chicks, a deep tub to raise them in for the first two months, chick food, food and water dis- pensers and a heat lamp. We set up their temporary home in the garage.

To help us, we got a how-to book on raising chickens and spoke to people who already had a flock. One suggestion was that it was good to expose the chickens to human contact so they would be calmer when we were in their coop. We talked to them daily and picked them up frequently to get them used to us. The chickens respond to our voices now and have never been upset when we reach in and take their eggs.

Bill did some research on the Internet and found several free blueprints for building a coop. It’s best not to use chicken wire for the coop but instead use hardware cloth, a wire mesh that comes in rolls. It is stronger, the holes are smaller and it will keep more small animals out of the coop. It is necessary to encompass the entire coop in the hard- ware cloth, both the bottom and side walls. The reason for this is that small animals tunnel and big animals dig to get to the chickens and/or their food.

The cost of building a coop varies; including a metal roof, we spent about $500 for the supplies. Bill and a friend built the coop. They got it done just as the chickens started roaming around the garage, so the chicks went from a 3-by-2-foot tub into an 8-by-16-foot, two-story coop.

It’s great to take what was once food waste and turn it into eggs. I don’t give the chickens anything that was in a dressing or sauce—just fresh ends of lettuce, tomatoes, beet tops, apple cores, berries, etc.

We chose a variety of chickens that would be able to tolerate our winter weather. At first we got more familiar breeds, such as Orpington, Rhode Island Red, and Plymouth Rock. The best egg layers and most beautiful of the bunch were the Plymouth Rock hens. We then added Ameraucana and Cochin chickens, and found the Ameraucanas to be great layers; it is easy to tell since their eggs have a green shell. When mixing different varieties, it is important to try and get breeds that will get along with each other, even though there will still be a pecking order despite all of your efforts.

We have learned that backyard chickens live longer due to their healthy environment; they average eight to 10 years, with some chickens living up to 15 years. They have a few good years of heavier egg laying, which decreases as they get older, but on average they lay for five to seven years.

It’s not necessary to have a rooster to have a hen lay eggs. Hens lay their first eggs when they are about five months old, and lay most of their eggs in the spring and summer months.

During the next five months after moving the chickens to the coop we got about two dozen eggs a week! It was great taking them as hostess gifts, and I started a tradition of giving “birthday eggs” rather than cards to our friends. Friends started saving egg cartons for us, and we had a label made to dress up the eggs that we gave away.

It is now part of our daily and weekly routine to feed, check for eggs, refresh the water and visit with our chick- ens. With the cost of the coop, the food and the scratch, I am quite cer- tain raising chickens doesn’t save us much money, if any, but it continues to be a joy to be able to gather eggs
from our own chickens. ❖

Some Quick Tips

❉ Clean up the chicken poop regularly so it does not become a big project. It is much nicer to have a clean coop.

❉ Have ground-up oyster shells in the coop for the chickens to nibble on. It keeps their eggshells strong.

❉ Give the chickens scratch regularly.

❉ Build the chicken coop prior to getting the baby chicks.

❉ Enjoy!