District Mulls Future of Full-Day Kindergarten

Superintendent of Schools Bill Gretzula is painfully aware the proposed state budget eliminates $694,000 in block grant money for the , a portion of which has fully funded the district's full-day kindergarten pilot program.

He also recognizes the need to eliminate the disparity created between the 120 kids who are in that program and the 260 who are not.

Nonetheless, he will continue to recommend maintaining the program, as is, for the 2011-2012 school year.

“Full-day kindergarten exposes the students to more opportunities to write, and you tend to see kids making nearly double the gains in full-day than half-day (in reading),” he said.

It also “levels the playing field” for the growing number of students with limited English skills, he said.

And while it is harder to measure the gains in social and emotional development, he added, full-day kindergarten also has obvious advantages in those areas.

'The beauty of full-day kindergarten is kids get to eat lunch together. They have time for recess, where they learn to play. They also have the opportunity to explore special subjects like the arts, music, physical education, computers and the library,” he said.

The pilot program began in 2007-2008, with two lottery-drawn classes of 17 students each. The following year it expanded to six classes, with a total of 102 youngsters. The number of students is now 120, as the district still has six classes of full-day K and 17 half-day classes.

And the district has been lauded by the state Department of Education for the program, the superintendent said.

Gretzula explained that the school board voted last year to continue the program for this and next school year, provided that the state block grant funding was still available. The hope, he said, had been to soon move to “universal full-day kindergarten for any student ready for it or whose family wanted it.”

This year, Gretzula said, 92 percent of parents responding to a poll said they wanted full-day kindergarten for their children.

Some parents, citing a rumor that the pilot program is being cut, showed up at the last school board meeting, March 23, to express their dismay.

Kevin Albert, of Princeton Court, said the program gave his son a “great start” and “fostered imagination.”

“We're hoping for the same for my daughter,” he said. “I hope you keep this program alive and make it available to all kindergarten students.”

Citing numerous studies that say full-day kindergarten helps kids' productivity and behavior, resident Masoud Tasleem said cutting the program would be a “big mistake.”

“My daughter is in the part-time setting and I feel we're really missing out,” he added.

At present. Gretzula said the approved preliminary 2011-2012 budget includes $225,000 of local money to pay for the equivalent of three teachers needed for full-day K. If the pilot program is cut, he said it is not likely, given attrition, that any teachers would lose their employment with the district.

The school board must make a decision by June.

“This is a true need-versus-desire issue, and I know I have to prove that it is necessary,” he said.