January is School Board Recognition Month.

To help our readers recognize the conduct and mentality of our current, elected board members, we have put together a little test to see if these people are, in fact, discernible from other faces in the crowd.

1) This member is prone to making phone calls to concerned members of the District community but then quickly changes his mind when you answer the phone. He asks for a person that you both know but promptly hangs up when he realizes he has made a serious blunder.

a) Susan Paine
b) Gary Noble
c) Pat Shields

2) This member maintains a death grip on his seat because his wife wants a brand new classroom in a brand new high school in a brand new part of a different town.

a) Ann McMurray
b) Susan Phillips
c) Gary Noble

3) This member was singled out by Marla Miller as one of two individuals that directed her to start the negotiations for a contaminated piece of property full of rotting and not-quite-compacted soil when no meaningful inspections or tests had begun. She had only been on the board two months and was certainly struggling to stay afloat in the deep end of the pool. The other board member was Bruce Williams.

a) Susan Paine
b) Pat Shields

c) Ann McMurray

4) This member tries to silence opposition by firing off anonymous letters from her place of employment making claims that have no foundation in reality. Fortunately, our team of investigators was able to specifically match postmarks and identify the culprit "beyond a reasonable doubt".

a) Gary Noble
b) Pat Shields
c) Susan Paine

5) This member started up a non-profit organization called Powerful Partners and used his seat on the board to avoid paying rent in the ESC. While he thinks he is in the clear because he is no longer the director, we all know it is still his pet project. Clearly he doesn't find such freeloading to be contrary to the appropriate use of public funds.

a) Susan Phillips
b) Susan Paine
c) Pat Shields

6) This member has yet to offend our moral senses, though we are currently distracted by all of the other offenses levied against common decency. She seems to be reading the blog regularly and leaves the impression that she might actually care. The other board members will soon pound that inclination out of her.

a) Pat Shields
b) Ann McMurray
c) Susan Phillips

You can submit your answers in the comment section of this entry and I will draw a random winner for a $20 gift card from Tully's. Of course, the winner will be anonymous, so what I will do is leave a balance at the Tully's in Edmonds and anyone going in during certain hours on a certain day will get a free drink of their choice. You will just have to provide a catch phrase to staff and your drink will be compliments of the blog. If you see Marla or Nick while you are there, be sure to tell them you have coffee there all of the time.