by Hannelore Sudermann
photography by Robert Hubner
Spring 2006
On her first day of school, Michelle Lopez carefully fills her
new backpack with five pencils in the front pocket, pens in
another, and post-its and a rainbow of highlighters in the rest.
Oh, and all 20 pounds of her books.
Once on campus, she nervously opens and folds her campus map and
glances around to get her bearings. Here in Pullman her freshman
class holds 2,800 students, about 800 more people than her entire
hometown of Bridgeport, Washington. But she still manages a show of
poise as she makes her way through the crowded halls of the Smith
Center for Undergraduate Education.
Petite, 18, with shoulder-length brown hair and wide grey-green
eyes, she wears jeans, white tennis shoes, and a pink blouse.
Michelle is not a typical student. She was valedictorian of her
high school. Here at Washington State University she is a Regents
Scholar. Because of her academic achievements in high school a
portion of her tuition is paid for two years. And she is the first
person in her family of migrant workers who came to Washington in
the 1990s to enroll in a four-year American university.
But Michelle Lopez is not the only reason the Bridgeport School
District should be proud.
In the late 1990s the district suddenly went from being mostly
white to mostly migrant Hispanic, as a growing tree-fruit industry
attracted new workers. Then there were some bad years of low test
scores and rocketing dropout rates.
But the district was quick to recover. Instead of lowering
expectations for students who might be struggling with English, the
teachers adjusted their efforts to provide them with basic skills
to carry them into more complicated courses like honors English and
high-level science, classes that helped Lopez get in to WSU with a
scholarship.
For all this and more, the district has won national
recognition. In 2004, the elementary school won a National Title 1
Distinguished School Award from the U.S. Department of Education
for its gains in student achievement.
That same year, the elementary was one of six schools to earn
the Washington State Academic Achievement Award. Last year the high
school won it’s own federal Distinguished School Award for student
gains in math and reading over the past two years. All this
happened under the leadership of superintendent Gene Schmidt, a WSU
graduate student.
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