Parents, staff and community members will have a chance to provide their thoughts about a possible change to the elementary school model in Sequim, Sequim School District’s lead administrator said — a proposal that would put students in pre-kindergarten through second grade at one school and students in grades 3-5 in another.

Jane Pryne said in an interview last week the change to the elementary school model — one discussed with staff in recent weeks — wouldn’t come for the 2021-2022 academic year, she said.

“We are being very thoughtful about whether this is extremely beneficial for our students, and if we roll it out … we need the staff, the community, the parents on board. Nothing has been determined,” she said.

“It would definitely come to the board for a decision, and that would not happen before mid- to late fall, months out,” Pryne said.

Sequim School Board president Brandino Gibson said board directors had heard about the plan in Pryne’s weekly updates to the board, but the first time the proposal was mentioned in an open public meting was at the April 12 board meeting.

District officials sent out a message to parents/guardians on April 15, noting that the district is in initial stages of two major initiatives: “investigating and studying the delivery of instruction to our elementary students,” along with establishing and implementing a district-wide equity policy.

“Planning strategically for the future of our school district involves much thought, research, planning and work,” the district noted in the email.

“While we continue to thoughtfully examine these topics, we will be asking for participation and input from Sequim School District stakeholders (parents, staff, and community). Please be assured we are in the infant stages of these discussions and are aware there are many phases involved in these processes resulting in any changes.”

Sequim has about 510 students (by head count) at Greywolf Elementary School in Carlsborg and about 500 students at Helen Haller Elementary near the district’s main campus, as of March 2021.

Pryne noted that whomever replaces Helen Haller Elementary School principal Rebecca Stanton — the board last week approved Stanton’s resignation, effective in July — will be involved on those discussions.

A change to Sequim’s elementary model, she said, could be beneficial for students to get a similar foundational start at the PreK-second grade school and get more interventions into subjects such as reading at the grade 3-5 school.

Such a model would eliminate distraction for younger students while the older elementary students are involved in statewide testing.

Eric Danielson, a teacher at Helen Haller Elementary, said he wrote to Pryne of concerns he had soon after learning about the proposed changes. One of them is if Helen Haller would be able to help the 660-plus third-, fourth- and fifth grade students complete state tests each year.

“With the number of laptops necessary, I don’t know if Helen Haller has the infrastructure,” Danielson said Monday.

In addition, he said, the proposal listed a primary and secondary bus schedule, which would thwart the district moving to a five-days-per-week schedule for students.

“Besides the number of changes, my question was, ‘Are we really going to do this now?’” Danielson said.