Vote for candidates in South Kitsap focused on student success

The South Kitsap School District is failing our students! This is per OSPI (Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction) which oversees K-12 public education. They track the testing scores of each school and combine the figures to provide an average score to determine if a level of higher learning is attained. They also instruct and guide the teachers. Anyone can go to their website, look at South Kitsap testing and sign up to receive daily news from all districts in the state of WA. Every parent should be on that site checking out their student's school.

Here are a few statistics that I verified after speaking with Rhonda Edwards, candidate for the School Board Position #5: 37% of 3rd grade students can read at 3rd grade level; 43% of 8th grade students are at 8th grade science levels; 26% of 10th grade students can read at 10th grade level.

This is based on testing performed at the end of the 2023 school year. This is failure! We need new board members who will prioritize education as the No. 1 issue. The district receives $17,721 per student...our kids deserve better! Vote for Rhonda Edwards for positive change! Her website offers solutions that will bring about success! We can't affect change without first acknowledging the failures and Rhonda has the business experience to do this. We don't need more "academia" on the school board who have zero experience running a $275 million dollar budget.Joni Wilson, Manchester

This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: Vote for candidates in South Kitsap focused on student success