The Oakville School District has a new preschool. Construction is set to finish by September and the district is currently enrolling students. The Oakville School District preschool is seen under construction on Friday afternoon.
For children under 5 in Oakville, early education options are limited. Within city limits, there isn’t a preschool, or even a daycare.
“There’s nothing for kids that age,” said Rich Staley, who is the Oakville School District superintendent. “Some kids go to the Head Start at the Chehalis Tribal Center, but unless they get into that — or their families have the means to get to Rochester or Elma for some sort of pre-K — kids here just don’t do it.”
This pre-K program is the result of a collaboration between Grays Harbor Community Foundation, a nonprofit that benefits youth in Grays Harbor, the YMCA in Hoquiam and the Oakville School District.
There will be two staff members in the preschool — a paraeducator and Cassie Simpson, who is the YMCA Oakville Pre-K Director. The two will work together to direct the program.
“We use the creative curriculum through pre-K,” Simpson said. “It’s a lot of play-based (learning). It helps kids transition into what their structure would look like in kindergarten, in regards to getting them their basic learning through hands-on experiences.”
Staley said that many students enter kindergarten unprepared for the demands, especially in the Oakville School District.
“The reason this is so important to us is we look at the last five years worth of kindergartners that have come into our system,” Staley said. “Over half of them didn’t have pre-K before they got here … We’ve had a tough time catching up as a system. This hopefully will give our kids better opportunity to get ahead earlier.”
The building is currently under construction, but is set to be finished by September. The district is still working on licensing, so it does not have a start date yet. However, eight students have already enrolled in the program, which serves 3- and 4-year-old children.
“We’re still in the process of enrollment, so we’re waiting to see how many families (sign up),” Staley said. “We have capacity for 16 to start with, so we’re hopeful to be able to fill that.”
The school district received a $98,000 grant from the Grays Harbor Community Foundation for the pre-K program. Some of those funds went toward construction and materials, but $25,000 of that grant is available for student scholarships.
Parents can sign up their children by going to the school district, or the YMCA in Hoquiam.
While the facility was still under construction on Friday, there will eventually be two classrooms. Simpson said she will start with only one of the rooms.
“Eventually, we’re hoping that this will be for 40 (students),” Simpson said. “So it would be two separate classrooms, but we can collaborate together as a classroom if we need to with our half wall.”
The pre-K program isn’t the only change Oakville School District made this year. The district, which has roughly 200 students, hired six new teachers, a paraeducator for the preschool and a counselor this school year. This brings its teaching staff to 18 people.
“We had some folks who resigned or left, some retirement and then we had some folks that moved onto other districts,” Staley said. “My first year as superintendent was last year, so sometimes when there is a leadership change, people decide that they want to move on.”
In late 2017, the Oakville School District developed concerns related to its financial records. Earlier this year, the Washington State Auditor’s Office began investigating the school district for suspected embezzlement.
Staley said that none of the teachers who were replaced left because of that investigation. He said most employees who were involved with the embezzlement case left before he became the superintendent. He added that the only employee that didn’t leave before he arrived has since retired.
The case is still under investigation. Staley said he does not have an estimate of how much was stolen that he can share publicly.
“It will come out when the Auditor’s Office gives us the report,” he said.
He noted that the Auditor’s Office said it will be about another month or so before their investigation is complete.
“We’re committed as a new administration and new business office to righting this ship,” Staley said.
