New Representative J.D. Rossetti Moving forward with Education

Published by Karen Carter in the Willapa Harbor Herald on January 6, 2016

J.D. Rossetti discussed his viewpoints and goals for education. In an interview he revealed his focus on educational issues faced by the 19th District.

The future focus of education
One of the main goals that Rossetti has for education is to create a better system for preparing the children for occupational steps forward. “We need to figure out how to get workforce development into our communities,” Rossetti said. “This means taking some proactive steps to get our businesses engaged and interested and partnering with the local community colleges.” Rossetti explained that his meant that more technical programs need to be offered in colleges to get people working.

He views this as an immediate need for every student. “I sit on the Longview School Board, so education is very important to me,” he said. “But what I see is once we are getting the kids to a high school diploma we are not doing well with providing the opportunities for them to get into workforce training development programs or keeping them engaged and then productive afterwards.”

“I think specifically in the 19th district we have a real hard time because we send our kids off to WSU and UW,” he stated. “They’re getting their degrees. They are staying there, getting their families, getting married, starting families, buying a house. So by the time when they are at a place where there is an opportunity to come back home they have so many roots that they are not wanting to come back home. I think that is really hard on all of our families too.”

Rossetti points to his own family as an example. He is currently raising four boys between the ages of 7- to 13-years-old. “I want them to go off and get a degree,” he said. “But I would prefer that they get a degree right here at home. And I would like it if they are going to leave, I would like to see them come back. But I’m hoping that they can stay here forever. This is a great area to live in. I want to be close to my family and I want to have a close knit family moving forward. I want to see my grand kids every day.”

The concern that Rossetti feels is pointed at the practice of bringing in skill laborers from outside the District. Rossetti was talking with two industries based in Longview that were looking for engineers, but they had to look outside the district and state to find them.

“That’s just frustrating,” Rossetti said. “We have kids that want to be engineers but they have to go off somewhere to learn that and then they do not really want to come back.”

Testing and Funding
Rossetti expressed his views on standardized testing by saying, “In a perfect world I would say just get rid of the whole thing.” But he points out that this is not a perfect educational solution. “I think that one standardized test is fine,” he said. “It’s the fact that we don’t have just one standardized test. We have multiple standardized tests. And with each test comes hours of teaching to that test. They (teachers) are being told how they are having to teach that. Their hands are being tied. That doesn’t leave a lot of time for class time.”

“In Longview, we have a school garden at every single school through a public partnership through the Lower Columbia Gardens,” Rossetti explains. “So we can’t even have our kids go out there for regular class time because there is no curriculum for standardizing school gardens and teaching how to grow something, what it looks like when it’s growing, how to save the seeds, how to pick the fruits and vegetables and how to prepare the food. There is so much great stuff you can do in a school garden and it’s great to watch all of that. But they have to do all of that stuff outside of their regular teaching time because that does not meet the SBAC (Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium) standards.”

“I just think that needs to stop,” he said. “We really need to get down to the root that teaching kids is teaching kids and that is not a standardized box that we put people in. It is how they learn best, meeting each kid where they are at. And that is the important thing of getting kids educated and moving on to be successful.”

When asked about the shortage of programs geared towards special needs and gifted students in the District Rossetti responded, “So all of this comes down to how we finance education.”

“The fact is the schools in Seattle and Belleview are able to tax at a larger tax rate,” he stated. “And basically accumulate more money through their levies than us out here in the rural areas. So I think we need a fairer tax system to equalize the playing field so that schools in our rural communities are able to educate kids at the same level that kids in Seattle and Belleview and other urban areas are receiving their education at. So that would fix all of these problems in my opinion.”

Creating smarter happier children
One step in protecting children at school is to discourage violence and bullying in the schools according to Rossetti. “We really need to be promoting everyday positive mental outlooks on life,” he said. “I think that the biggest thing that we can do on a daily basis is remind kids how unique they are, that having a positive outlook is huge and keeping mental health in good condition. I think that those areas will decrease what we are seeing as the negative stuff going on in our societies.”

“In Longview, what we are finding that is working well is that we focused our efforts into putting a mental health counselor in all the elementary schools,” he stated. “Because one of the things that I noticed when I came on board as a school board member is that we kind of do some mental health counseling up in the high school levels, even less in the middle schools and we had almost none in the elementary schools.”

Rossetti went on to explain that in his opinion it is best to combat mental issues and behavioral problems early in a child’s development. The idea is to give young children the help they need so that they do not have so many issues when they are older. That way society does not have to work so hard when the children are older.

Rossetti also explained that the state has worked on some mandates for curriculum in schools that focus on anti-bullying. Schools that have tested the programs have liked the results making the school a safer and better environment for children.

“The pet project that I have is figuring out a way to fully fund basic education at a state level,” said Rossetti. “I think that is everyone’s priority. I want to see us get out from underneath our Supreme Court Order, Contempt Order, and fully fund basic education as a state.”

He said, “I have some ways to do that, but I’m just a Freshman Legislator; I don’t know if all my great ideas will pass in my first year. But that is definitely my priority.”

Thank You
“I’m honored for the privilege to serve otherwise I’m just excited to do my part in this next session,” Rossetti said. “I want to make sure that my office doors are open for everybody. I’m accessible and I’m willing to be accessible to anyone who wants to reach out.”

If you have any questions, comments, concerns for Representative Rossetti he is available by mail, phone and email.

Representative JD Rossetti
334 John L O’Brien Building
PO Box 40600
Olympia, WA 98504
Phone: 360-786-7806
Email: [email protected]

“They can come in to visit,” he said. “I want to hear what people have to say.”