MUKILTEO — School dismissal times could change next year for thousands of elementary and middle school students in the Mukilteo School District.
All students in first grade through fifth grade will be dismissed at 3:30 p.m., as will half-day kindergarten students attending the afternoon session.
First- and second-grade students now are dismissed at 2:30 p.m. and third through fifth grade students are dismissed at 3:30 p.m.
Middle school students, whose school day now begins at 8:20 a.m. and ends at 3 p.m. would begin 15 minutes earlier, at 8:05 a.m., and end at 2:45 p.m.
The school board is scheduled to give final approval to the plan on March 28, school district spokesman Andy Muntz said.
About 1,000 kindergarten students currently are enrolled, with 7,000 elementary students and 3,500 middle school students, Muntz said.
The changes have been proposed as the school district prepares to offer full-day kindergarten beginning with the 2017-18 school year. The kindergarten day will end at 3:30 p.m.
The school district will begin a pilot program of all-day kindergarten in the fall at two elementary schools, Odyssey and Lake Stickney, he said. Classes for these students also will end at 3:30 p.m.
The time changes would mean that beginning next fall kindergarten and elementary students will get out at the same time — 3:30 p.m., Muntz said.
“It seemed odd that you’d have kindergarten students go to 3:30 p.m. and for first and second graders to 2:30 p.m.,” he said. “So that spurred on everyone getting out at 3:30 p.m.”
Overall, the student day will be 45 minutes longer for the first and second graders and 15 minutes shorter for third, fourth and fifth graders, he said.
All-day kindergarten will be available to all youngsters in the school district beginning in the fall of 2017 when the new $36.8 million kindergarten-only building opens. It will have room for up to 550 students. The school will be on the campus of Fairmount Elementary School on Beverly Park Road.
Sharon Salyer: 425-339-3486; salyer@heraldnet.com
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