Full-day kindergarten is coming to Warsaw Community Schools, but it took several amendments to the original motion and more than an hour of discussion Monday night for the school board to approve it. The original motion was to approve Option A, which is for WCS to provide full-day kindergarten for all schools and half-day kindergarten at selected school sites, with transportation provided to the schools. The full-day and half-day kindergarten options will be free to all. Later, the board amended the motion to say that full-day kindergarten would be reviewed after one year. Another amendment put a time frame on the review, with the review process beginning in January. The third amendment, suggested by board president Deb Wiggins, stated that the last thing the school corporation would do to find revenue to provide for full-day kindergarten would be to increase class size in other grades to accommodate the full-day kindergarten program. A caveat to the motion, suggested by board member Kent Adams, was that the full-day kindergarten program be a part of a proposed balanced budget. For the third straight month, WCS Director of Special Services Deb Blatz presented the board with the proposal. She said a task force has been studying full-day kindergarten and surveyed parents to determine if a full-day kindergarten program should be offered at WCS. In her review, Blatz said, out of 260 responses to a survey, 78.1 percent said they were interested in full-day kindergarten, while 21.9 percent were not. Since the state will not cover the full cost of full-day kindergarten, parents were asked if they would pay a fee for full-day kindergarten. Out of the responders, 77.3 percent said they would, and 22.7 percent were not interested in paying a fee. Blatz said everyone has really come together to research full-day kindergarten. There are many considerations for offering full-day kindergarten, which Blatz reviewed again for the board. Those include teaching the Common Core Standards to students. Beginning next school year, a third-grade student who doesn’t pass the IREAD Assessment will be held back by state law, and offering full-day kindergarten will help lower the number of retentions, she said. Blatz said full-day kindergarten will help with higher academic achievement, stronger social and emotional development, higher scores on third-grade standardized tests and fewer grade retentions. Teachers will tell you, Blatz said, that full-day kindergarten will mean class is less rushed, there will be more time in extended learning opportunities with small groups and individuals and teachers can focus on individual learning needs of children, intervention or enrichment opportunities. School corporations bordering WCS already offer full-day kindergarten, most at no charge, Blatz said. During 2010-11, 300 public and private schools in Indiana offered full-day kindergarten. Blatz explained all three options before the board selected Option A. Option B was for full-day kindergarten for all children at all schools without a half-day option and at no charge. Option C was for full-day kindergarten offered as an option to students for a fee in all elementary buildings. Half-day kindergarten would be offered at schools based on requests and enough children for an 18-to-1 ratio. Under Option C, there would be a fee of $30 per week for paid lunch students in full-day kindergarten, and no charge for students eligible for reduced or free lunch. Half-day classrooms would be created if there were enough parents requesting it, using a ratio of 18 to 1. Board member Dan Metzger asked for a funding explanation for the program. A full-time student in first through 12th grade nets an Indiana school $5,500. For half-day kindergartners, schools net $2,750, Blatz said. The state full-day kindergarten grant may provide about $1,050 in additional dollars to WCS, but that still leaves a shortfall of $1,700 for a child in kindergarten that the school corporation has to make up or prioritize differently. Adams expressed concern about state funding as there is no guarantee the money will be there down the road. He said he knows that state revenue was down $87 million in April. “I’m not questioning the program, but the dollars,” Adams said. Chief Financial Officer Kevin Scott said that pending the number of new kindergarten teachers Warsaw would need for the program, the school corporation may have to have less teachers elsewhere. It would be a trade off. For the 2011-12 school year, Scott estimated a $210,000 deficit for the full-day program. Superintendent Dr. Craig Hintz said the district has “x” amount of dollars. He said there are options the school corporation has to provide funding for full-day kindergarten, including not filling teacher positions as teachers retire or notching up class sizes a little. Out of a $42 million general fund budget, the program is about $200,000. As the corporation leader, Hintz said he would be willing to say WCS can fund full-day kindergarten with some effort. Option A would provide about three school sites where half-day kindergarten would be offered. Metzger asked if that would include sites in the North, South and one other location. Blatz said that was right. Blatz said she thinks once kids are in full-day kindergarten and thrive, eventually it will be so popular that WCS won’t have half-day kindergarten, or will just have one site. Metzger said he likes that Option A offers the option of half-day kindergarten. If it ends up only a couple of kids in half-day, the school corporation needs to be realistic, Metzger said. Delores Hearn, board secretary, said the full-day option is something WCS should offer and many parents want it. During public comments, parent Michelle Yeager said she appreciates Option A. She said she doesn’t think full-day kindergarten would be necessary for her kids, but she understood that other children could use it. Jefferson Principal Denny Duncan and teachers Carla Milliman, Marcia Kilgore and Kelly Hepler all spoke in favor of full-day kindergarten. After the board approved Option A and Wiggins announced there will be full-day kindergarten at WCS, the people in the meeting room greeted the news with a long round of applause.
