Bellingham Public Schools has announced its 2026 Promise Award recipients, recognizing outstanding staff and volunteers who have made exceptional contributions to students and the broader school community. The district made surprise announcement visits to honorees before sharing the news publicly, celebrating seven of eight award categories. The final honor, the Community Partner of the Year, will be announced at the end of May.
The Promise Awards program is tied to The Bellingham Promise, the district's strategic plan that guides how schools approach student learning, community engagement, and staff development. The awards are supported by the Bellingham Public Schools Foundation and are intended to spotlight the work of people whose contributions might otherwise go unnoticed by the broader community.
Among the 2026 honorees is Dan Sasse, a paraeducator at Bellingham High School, who received the Above and Beyond Service Award. Sasse was described by colleagues as a "one in a million educator" who approaches every interaction with his whole heart, with a focus on empowering students to build confidence and independence. Paraeducators play a critical but often underappreciated role in Bellingham's schools, providing direct support to students with a wide range of learning needs, behavioral challenges, and physical accommodations.
The Promise Awards recognize contributions across a range of roles within the district, not just classroom teachers. The program reflects the district's view that students thrive because of a broad network of people: administrators, custodians, coaches, specialists, volunteers, and community partners, as well as the instructional staff who spend each day in front of students. The surprise announcement visits are a deliberate choice by the district to make the recognition public and celebratory in a way that plain email announcements do not achieve.
Bellingham Public Schools serves roughly 10,000 students across the city's neighborhoods from Cordata and Birchwood in the north to Sehome and Happy Valley in the south. The district operates more than 20 schools, including elementary, middle, and high school campuses, as well as alternative programs and early childhood education sites. Its staff community numbers in the hundreds across both certificated and classified roles.
The Promise Awards come as the district is also navigating longer-term facilities planning questions. Earlier this month, Superintendent Greg Baker updated the community on a Facilities Planning Task Force that is evaluating school building conditions and enrollment trends across the district, a process that will shape capital investment decisions in the years ahead.
Full profiles of all 2026 Promise Award recipients, along with photos from the surprise announcement visits, are available on the Bellingham Public Schools website. The Community Partner of the Year announcement in late May will complete the 2026 class. Information about the Bellingham Promise strategic plan and how the district measures progress against its goals is also available at bellinghamschools.org.
For more local education news, coverage of the Bellingham Schools Facilities Planning Task Force update is available in this story.
