CKSD leader’s proposal gets warm reception.

As superintendent of the Central Kitsap School District, Greg Lynch has seen firsthand what happens when the Washington state Legislature adopts changes to the state’s public education system and gives districts less than 120 days to implement those reforms.

“Those days are the end of the school year and during the summer and we need to change that,” Lynch said. “When you identify a problem, you have an obligation to address it positively and make a difference.”

That’s exactly what Lynch has done over the past seven months as he has presented his “Anatomy of Change” proposal to various education leaders including state Superintendent Randy Dorn, local state legislators and the Washington Board of Education on March 13.

“By-in-large, it’s been well-received by everyone,” Lynch said, adding the goal of his proposal is to increase student achievement by creating a more efficient method for providing the state with the ability to implement directives in a timely, productive and purposeful way.

Instead of causing school boards, which have already crafted their budgets for the next school year, to scramble to find funding to meet a new state mandate, the state needs to take a long-term approach to implementing change, he said.

“We need to be good stewards of our taxpayer dollars and we have to focus on long-range solutions that go beyond the current biennium,” he said.

Such changes are especially important during the state’s current financial crisis, which Lynch called, “the perfect time” to implement his “Anatomy of Change” proposal.

In outgoing Bremerton School District Superintendent Bette Hyde, who will become the state’s head of the Department of Early Learning in April, Lynch has at least one ardent supporter.

“Sometimes you need someone who isn’t as entrenched in the education system to take a look at it and say, ‘This doesn’t work. How can we make it better?’” Hyde said.

Lynch’s proposal makes perfect sense and ties in well with the current movement in Olympia to reform the state’s public education system after 30 years of empty promises, she said.

“I think (the proposed changes) will work well for everybody,” Hyde said.