SEQUIM — Much has happened in two motley rooms at the Sequim Community School. Toddlers discovered the world by way of books, then clambered on plastic play equipment while men and women embarked on that wild ride known as parenthood.
These are the First Teacher rooms, at the school at 220 W. Alder St., where joyful preschooler business was well under way Wednesday morning.
Randy Reid, a self-described stay-at-home dad, began reading If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, and 21 toddlers and parents listened carefully.
It was story time with a guest star, as it is four mornings a week at First Teacher.
This particular morning was different, though.
‘Save First Teacher’
A “save First Teacher” brainstorming session had just taken place in the library, with sole staff member Patsene Dashiell – who’ll almost certainly lose her 16-hour-a-week job come September — taking notes.
The Sequim School District, faced with slashed state funding, must trim nearly $1.4 million from its 2009-10 budget; First Teacher is near the top of the list of planned eliminations. Shutting down its activities and newsletter would save the district $42,000.
A second brainstorming meeting is set for 9 a.m. May 27 in the First Teacher library, and a fundraising lunch, with a parent educator as a guest speaker, is in the works for summer.
The eight parents who partook in Wednesday’s discussion reminded Dashiell of herself 16 years ago, when she first moved to Sequim.
“My girls were 1 and 4,” she said, and while they found friendly people at First Teacher, so did she.
“I’m still friends with the people I met here,” Dashiell added.
Her daughter Chelsea, 20, is a Peninsula College student, while Hallie, 16, is a junior at Sequim High School.
First Teacher was born 19 years ago under the umbrella of the Parenting Matters Foundation, with the goal of helping parents prepare their toddlers for school, thus setting them on a road to happy lives.
Reading, playing, talking and listening with preschoolers makes all the difference in their future, believes Cynthia Martin, Parenting Matters founder.
If children haven’t received the attention they need before starting school, she said they may fall — and stay — behind. When a youngster is frustrated in school, he or she is more likely to get into trouble, Martin added.
Martin compiles First Teacher’s monthly 10-page newsletter and mails it, loaded with parenting tips and activities, to 1,000 households and professionals in Sequim.
Some have suggested putting the newsletter online and saving postage costs, but Martin thinks many Sequim area parents either don’t have easy Internet access or the time to spend on the Web.
“I’m not willing, at this point, to eliminate those people,” she said.
The Sequim School District Board of Directors, during its April 30 meeting, discussed the cutting of First Teacher.
Directors Walt Johnson and Virginia O’Neil expressed strong feelings about its value.
Late August
District Superintendent Bill Bentley told the board it has until late August, when it adopts the 2009-10 budget, to explore alternatives.
Martin, meantime, is hoping for a partial, not total, cutback.
“If they fund any part of it, I will keep working diligently to find other sources of funding,” she said.
Already the Port Angeles School District has said it will cut First Teacher newsletter funding in that city from $20,000 to $10,000, Martin said.
That will mean fewer newsletters: four or five instead of the nine sent yearly to preschoolers’ parents on the Port Angeles mailing list.
In Sequim, the morning stories and play time provide something far beyond the newsletter, Martin said.
Like Dashiell, she was impressed by the parents who joined Wednesday’s brainstorming session.
“The thing that blew me away is that parents said they had stayed in the community because of the First Teacher program,” she added.
Some told her they had relatives in Port Townsend or Port Angeles but chose to live in Sequim because they’d met so many people at First Teacher’s library.
Reid, who moved on from the Cookie book to Commotion in the Ocean, a gigantic picture book, added that he’s learned at least as much as his daughter Maren, 3.
When he retired from the Coast Guard and moved to Sequim two years ago, First Teacher was one of the first places he went.
“I was a stay-at-home dad, not knowing what I was doing,” he said.
So while Maren frolicked in the playroom, Reid pored over the parenting library.
As for First Teacher’s future, “I think there’s a lot of potential for fundraising,” Reid said. “It just takes people who can step up.”
Free story times and children’s books, a playroom and a parents’ library and programs are offered by First Teacher.
At 10 a.m. Thursday, the program will focus on readying children for kindergarten; at 10 a.m. Friday, firefighters will talk about home fire prevention; and at 10 a.m. Monday, Katie Gilles will read stories and introduce children to her hens’ baby chicks.
For details about these and other free programs for infants, preschoolers and their families, visit the First Teacher rooms on weekday mornings, phone 360-582-3428 or see www.FirstTeacher.org.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
