MARYSVILLE — When Katherine Casey led a classroom of third-graders from Liberty Elementary School through a reading and spelling exercise last week, she wasn’t just teaching 8-year-olds to find “ew” sounds.
Forming a semicircle around the students were more than a dozen teachers and principals from four Marysville schools. They were there observing how the reading expert from the University of Washington’s Center for Educational Leadership presented her lesson and gleaning ideas for their classrooms.
Such training sessions are extremely helpful in teaching reading and writing skills, said Scott Irwin, principal at Liberty, where nearly three out of four students qualify for a free or subsidized lunch based on family income.
Such training also is likely to become scarce over the next few years.
Gov. Chris Gregoire’s proposed budget doesn’t include money for Initiative 728, which provided for smaller classes, training, and before-school and afternoon tutoring for nearly a decade. It is one of several education cuts totaling about $400 million that could be made as the Legislature addresses a $2.6 billion shortfall in the state budget.
Randy Dorn, the state superintendent of public instruction, estimates that Gregoire’s proposal could lead to layoff notices for 5,000 teachers on top of 1,300 a year ago.
“The proposed budget is historic,” Dorn said. “It cuts away at the heart of what we consider basic education.”
Among other things, the budget proposal would:
Suspend state money for all-day kindergarten in high poverty areas to save $33.6 million.
Suspend a program that equalizes school funding between wealthy and poor school districts to save $142.9 million. In Marysville, for instance, that could mean $3 million.
Suspend the state program for gifted education, which would affect nearly 23,000 students and save $7.4 million.
Eliminate extra funding for kindergarten through fourth-grade education, a statewide program that reduces class size in the early grades. It would save $110 million.
“I’m very scared about next year,” Irwin said.
A year ago, Liberty was able to offer four all-day kindergarten classes. This year, because of budget cuts, there are two. Next year, there probably won’t be any, Irwin said.
All the cuts and lost learning time will put more pressure on schools.
“Standards have gone up,” Irwin said. “We expect them to be reading around the end of kindergarten.”
I-728 was aimed at helping students reach higher academic standards required by the state. Statewide, 72 percent of voters approved the initiative in 2000 when the economy was robust. It received 73 percent of the vote in Snohomish County.
Last year, school districts received $458 for each full-time student under I-728. This year that amount dropped to $131 per student and that money is actually federal stimulus dollars. That federal money won’t be available in 2011-12.
I-728 not only provides school districts more money, it also gives more discretion on how to spend it.
Everett received $8.08 million from I-728 last year. That amount dropped to $2.33 million this year.
The district had to cut back sharply on a teacher-coaching program that brought math, reading and science specialists from within the district to work with students and teachers.
The funding loss will have widespread effects, such losing after-school homework clubs and keeping high schools from adding college-level Advanced Placement courses because there won’t be money for the teacher training.
Less money to subsidize summer school tuition would mean some low-income students could miss out on an opportunity to catch up on credits.
“If they don’t have the money, we don’t know how we are going to do it,” said Mary Waggoner, an Everett School District spokeswoman.
In Mukilteo, I-728 money slipped from $6.4 million last year to $1.8 million this year.
The 2010-11 allocation in the current budget is $99 per student, or about $1.4 million, “but we expect that will be eliminated in the supplemental budget,” said Andy Muntz, a Mukilteo School District spokesman.
Last year, Marysville used I-728 money to emphasize teacher training in kindergarten, first and sixth grades — and the district saw big increases in the number of first-graders reading at grade level and the percentage of sixth-graders passing the state Washington Assessment of Student Learning reading exam. That percentage of sixth-graders passing the reading WASL jumped from 56.6 percent to 71 percent.
Marysville Superintendent Larry Nyland said I-728 is important to his district, but he worries more about other cuts proposed in the governor’s budget. Marysville also could lose 15 teachers from kindergarten to fourth grade under the proposal.
“While near and dear to the important work of improving learning, (I-728) represents much smaller cuts than other parts of the governor’s budget,” Nyland said.
Eric Stevick: 425-339-3446, stevick@heraldnet.com.
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