SEQUIM — Early childhood education dominated discussion Monday night when public speakers answered the call from Sequim School Board members to guide them in spending state education dollars.
The Sequim School District board held a special public hearing to take comments from community members on where to direct almost $900,000 in monies from Initiative 728, passed in 2000 with the goal of enriching kindergarten-through-12th-grade education.
About a dozen in the audience took the microphone at the Sequim High School library, all but one pleading with the board to avoid slashing funding to First Teacher, a pre-kindergarten program designed to prepare toddlers for their public school education experience.
“I’m concerned about the direction (the board) is going,” said Cynthia Martin, director of the First Teacher program and its related Parenting Matters Foundation.
“It seems to me everything is geared toward cutting early childhood education.
“If we want to make a change in how children are doing when they enter kindergarten, we need to focus on this,” Martin said.
Martin’s concern rests on Schools Superintendent Garn Christensen’s recommended parceling out of I-728 funds, intended to reduce class sizes, afford opportunities for staff development and to pay for pre-kindergarten educational programs, among other things.
Christensen proposed earmarking $676,000, or 76 percent, of the funds toward reducing class sizes in grades 5-12 — where he sees the greatest need in teacher-to-student interaction.
