An open letter to the North Kitsap School Board:

I realize this is perhaps “too late,” but I wanted to send it anyway.

My 6-year-old is in morning half-day kindergarten at Poulsbo Elementary School. She greatly enjoys her class, has a wonderful teacher (Mrs. Johnson), and has a kind bus driver (Mrs. Powell) who drives her safely home every day in time for lunch.

It’s been a great experience for my daughter, who is the oldest of our three kids. She is already reading, writing, doing math equations, and can explain scientific experiments to me. All things she could not do prior to this school year.

I was homeschooled as a child, then went to NKHS my junior year and OC for Running Start my senior year. I debated whether to homeschool my own kids but wanted to give the local school a chance and see how it would go for us. It’s been fantastic.

My younger children will be starting kindergarten fall 2016 and fall 2019. My dilemma now is to discover that kindergarten will be all day starting this fall. I feel this is a very bad decision for such young kids. When we look at countries with superior education, such as Norway, what we see is education structured around so much free play and creativity and not sitting in a desk and away from home for the whole day.

If half-day kindergarten is no longer available, I feel I will have no choice but to homeschool my children and they will miss the truly awesome experience my oldest is currently having.

I know the voices from the “wanting all-day kindergarten” camp are loud, but they are not the only voices. While it may be preferable for a child to be in kindergarten rather than daycare, it is not preferable for a young child to be away from their mother all day.

It is not in the best interest of a 6-year-old to be in school for a full day when there is a mother or father available to them. Many, many kindergarteners in North Kitsap have a parent home with them. I also see how well my child is doing in her half-day class. A whole-day class is clearly not necessary for kindergarten learning objectives and could in fact be detrimental as the children will be tired, with less outdoor time and free play.

Is there a way to make free full-day kindergarten available without removing morning half day? I can say with certainty I am not the only parent feeling anxious, frustrated, and displaced by a loss of half-day kindergarten.

Diana Frazier
Poulsbo