Draft 7-25-12 Dear Pegi, Thank you so much for meeting with us to explain the assumptions in BEX IV Levy

planning so far about preschool, after school and health clinic space in schools. Please also thank Lucy Morello and Jill Lewis for attending and helping to work through our questions. Early Learning and After School With respect to current Seattle School District planning, the following guidelines are tentatively in place. In the Basic Education specifications for elementary schools, two extra classrooms are provided. These may be used for pre-school or afterschool programs, and decisions about how space is actually designed is delayed until a design for each school is developed. These spaces will be dedicated for these uses and cannot be displaced by regular classrooms. There will be a new category of elementary schools in BEX IV called Comprehensive Schools which will seat up to 650 students. However, depending on the needs of individual schools, up to 150 seats in these schools may be reprogrammed for other uses such as early learning and afterschool programs. Comprehensive Schools are still in conceptual development, but they may include, as standard, additional amenities such as space for health clinics, dedicated space for early learning and after school programs. Eventually, there will be at least one Comprehensive School in each of the eleven school service areas. All elementary schools built or remodeled in the future will have core services that can service at least 650 students so that schools can fluctuate with changes in the overall number of students enrolling in the district or service area without adding portables. In schools that are under enrolled this may allow for bigger after school programs. There is no clear School District policy related to early learning to guide the development of preschool learning spaces. For example, the School District may decide to concentrate early learning in early childhood centers or disperse early childhood classrooms to some or all schools in a service area. That makes it more difficult to build specific scenarios into the specifications. Six new elementary schools are proposed for BEX 4. They will be located in north and west Seattle. All will be sized for 650 students, but decisions have not been made about whether or not to designate any of them as Comprehensive Schools. Decisions have not yet been made about early learning and/or after school spaces at those schools, but presumably, they will include at least two classroom spaces which could be used for those purposes (as per the Basic Education specifications). The BTA Levy scheduled for a vote in 2016 will offer another opportunity for incorporating policy guidance related to early learning into educational specifications. BTA funding is used to remodel schools.

Draft 7-25-12 The School Districts strategic plan will be updated soon. Hopefully, School District early learning policies will be spelled out in that document. Elementary, Middle and Health Clinics Health clinics will be provided in all comprehensive middle and high schools as they are built or rebuilt. Lucy Morello would like to include health facilities of some kind in Comprehensive Elementary Schools. The School District will provide interim facilities for the World School Health Clinic when it moves to Van Asselt Elementary. As we discussed in our meeting, the City urges the School District to consider moving more aggressively to include early learning classrooms in elementary schools. Since high quality preschool has been shown to positively influence student academic achievement, it stands to reason that priority should be given to including early learning classrooms in either schools or service areas where student achievement is lowest and poverty is highest. We would hate to see this issued delayed to an update of the strategic plan or until the 2016 BTA, especially for students and schools in Seattles lowest income neighborhoods. The 2011 renewal of the Families and Education levy doubled investments in early learning from $30 million to $62 million over seven years. Seattle Public Schools has been an energetic partner in the Prekindergarten Third Grade Plan developed to create a clear and consistent continuum of high quality education for young children from pre-school through third grade with the goal of helping all children achieve at standard in third grade. Thank you again for your willingness to meet and discuss these important issues. Sincerely, Holly Miller