King County Executive Dow Constantine toured the Mercer Island School District Thursday, Feb. 12 as part of his county-wide Best Starts for Kids listening tour, seeing what’s working in King County schools.

The Best Starts for Kids initiative aims to reduce demand for the criminal justice system by investing earlier in youth prevention efforts and address issues such as mental illness, substance abuse, homelessness and incarceration. Mercer Island was the 11th stop on the tour for Constantine.

Constantine met with Superintendent Dr. Gary Plano before having a small group discussion with the superintendent’s leadership team, which included director of human resources Mark Roschy, director of learning services Fred Rundle, and executive director of learning services Jennifer Wright.

Constantine asked the table what they saw as challenges in the district. Roschy mentioned a potential looming teacher shortage, an issue Constantine said he’s heard at other districts he’s visited. Roschy said tolling particularly posed a unique challenge for an Island community.

“We definitely have to lure people across the bridge to get here,” Roschy said. “The commute puts up real hurdles.”

Rundle mentioned issues with teacher readiness coming out of universities.

“There’s quite a gap between what we want and expect our teachers to do for kids in the classroom and what they’re prepared for,” Rundle said.

Explaining his initiative, Constantine referenced the Heckman Curve, research from University of Chicago professor James Heckman which stated, ‘the earlier the investment, the greater the return.’

Constantine hopes to apply such findings in helping youth deal with avoiding adverse situations and stress.

“We have programs that deal with this, but are very limited in scope,” Constantine said. “We need to expand that to other [areas] we want so kids get off to a good start.”

Constantine said currently, over 70 percent of the general fund is spent on “bad outcomes” in the criminal justice system, paying for law enforcement, prosecution and defense, and incarceration.

With Best Starts for Kids, Constantine expects to drive those spending numbers down.

“This is what we need to do,” Constantine said. “It’s like building infrastructure, why we build light rails or schools. Business infrastructure is important, and so is human infrastructure.”

Executives met with students

The two executives also met with seven Mercer Island High School students to get their take on how school is working for them in their community.

As the seven gathered before the guests arrived, student Naomi Moore shared what she had learned by doing a little online research about the County Executive and his plans.

“He is about building equity and opportunity,” she said, flipping through some notes.

Constantine explained his “Best Starts for Kids” intiative and how he had promised to visit every school district in King County to learn more about what works — from teachers and administrators to parents to students.

“That is why I am here,” he said. “I want to hear about ‘what is going on’ and meet you — the students.

I want to know what is good and what challenges you face.”

The students in turn spoke about the challenges of being new or different and how they assimilated at the school. But none of the students had anything less that positive to say.

“As a minority, I am treated differently. It is awkward,” said student Josiah Townsend.

But he added that his experience has been phenomenal here.

Moore said she was overwhelmed by the support from both staff and administrators.

Student June Kissel said everyone can find a place here.

Mary L. Grady contributed to this article.