As if public schools in our area were not feeling enough of a budget crunch for the foreseeable future, the subject is on the table in the Lake Washington School District to shift from three-year to four-year high schools in that district.

Lake Washington and our Northshore district are among but a handful of systems in the state still holding to the three-year junior high schools feeding three-year high schools. The apparent concern is for ninth-graders caught in a limbo of varying stages of social, hormonal and intellectual growth. As teachers point out, “life, liberty and the pursuit of puberty are junior high school concerns.”

Lake Washington is addressing the nagging issue of how to get ninth-graders to understand the importance of achieving grades at the ninth-grade level that will count just as much as high-school marks toward their ability to be accepted and succeed at college’s of their choice. Middle-school advocates stress the possibilities of a nurturing, more cohesive environment for 11-, 12- and 13-year olds.

The cost of converting to a middle school and four-year high-school program could be staggering. While working to balancing an already tight, tight budget for 2009-2010, Northshore will likely have one eye warily cast south following the process Lake Washington has begun to study and focus on during these changing times.

Needs cheering up

Friend, newswriting colleague and community servant Jeanne Edwards needs some cheering up. For many years, this former newspaper reporter, Bothell City Councilperson and state legislator has been bravely battling kidney disease — spending most of four days of each seven on kidney dialysis at nearby Evergreen Hospital.

She could use a note or a card sent to her retirement home at 10519 E. Riverside Drive, Bothell 98011.

Shingles anyone?

Polls confirm that health care and the need for its reform remains an issue at the very top of public concern across the nation. It’s definitely a concern to me, when:

To avoid the painful, crippling effects of “shingles” (aka “chickenpox revenge”) among an aging population, it would appear that preventive action would be a cost-effective way of avoiding this ailment.

Oops. Just don’t ask your health-insurance carrier. My insurer seems well versed in the meaning of the phrase “Catch-22.”

Go to the local medical clinic for your shot, I was told, and they’ll cover this vaccine. A search of virtually every clinic in the region revealed that these clinics do not and will not carry the vaccine. Too volatile, too costly, too problematic as to demand; that was the representative response from area medical clinics.

Try the local drug store, the insurer then suggested. I did. The vaccine was readily available after a short wait.

“Catch-22,” all right. The insurance carrier will cover the $225 shot only if administered at a medical clinic. So much for paying into either my Medicare or private plans; preventive medicine simply doesn’t pay?

John B. Hughes was owner-publisher of the Northshore Citizen from 1961 to 1988.