Preschool program growth and language-development work highlighted at Othello School Board meeting

Early childhood staff and the district’s preschool team presented program growth, instructional strategies and assessment data at the board meeting, telling trustees the program has expanded in enrollment and staffing and is using play-based, language-rich approaches aligned to WA Kids and WIDA standards.

The early childhood director (speaker 18) said the district grew from about 75 general-education preschool students to roughly 176 in TK-style classes and, including special-education classrooms, now serves just over 200 preschoolers. Staff increased from about 14 to 31, with a mix of certified teachers in transitional classes and paraprofessionals in other classrooms. The director identified one dual-language class and multiple transitional-kindergarten (TK) sections.

Staff described curricular materials and instructional routines developed by preschool coaches (story cards, rhyming boxes, Heggerty phonemic awareness) and an emphasis on comprehensible input, visuals and gestures to support multilingual learners. The presentation noted the district uses the WA Kids assessment for TK and a district-created assessment administered four times a year; the board was told that a benchmark of 50 points was set to indicate kindergarten readiness and that 103 students met the district’s readiness benchmark in January (described as about 60% of the cohort). The presenters clarified that some benchmarks come from teacher observation as part of a continuum rather than a single formal pen-and-paper test, and TK classes still complete WA Kids formal assessments in fall and spring.

Board members asked for concrete examples of foundational skills; staff described social-emotional decision-making ("safe body, safe hands, safe mouth") and simple self-regulation strategies used in classrooms. The superintendent and director also presented regional ESD comparisons showing Othello’s migrant students performed strongly on readiness and maintained relative performance through later state assessments.

Paula Lang (named in the presentation) and Nikki Wilkins were identified as preschool staff involved in curriculum and language-development work. The board thanked staff and noted continued interest in tracking progress as the year progresses.