Full-day kindergarten attracts majority of eligible youngsters
July 16, 2007Although both of Allison Martin's older sisters went through half-day kindergarten, this fall she'll be joining the majority of her Tippecanoe School Corp. peers in full-day kindergarten.
It was that fact that prompted her parents to put her in the full-day program at Klondike Elementary School, her mom, Melissa Martin, said.
"I just felt it was important for her to not be in the minority of students going into the first grade," Martin said. "It just gives her exposure to more things and makes the transition into first grade a little bit easier."
The Indiana General Assembly passed a budget this year that includes $33.5 million for full-day kindergarten this school year. Another $58.5 million has been set aside for the 2008-09 school year.
As a result, full-day programs have grown in most districts. Of the 293 districts in Indiana, 263 applied for the grants, which the Indiana Department of Education projects will amount to about $665 per student.
TSC superintendent Richard Wood said that this fall the nine TSC elementary schools will go from offering 20 full-day sections to 33 full-day and only 10 half-day sections.
Some schools will not even have a separate half-day class because there are too few students to support it, Wood said. Those students would spend the morning in the same class as the full-day students and then leave before lunch.
"This fall will be the first time the majority of our students will be in full-day kindergarten," Wood said. "We hope as the state increases the grant the participation grows."
The district will use the grant to offer free full-day kindergarten first to students who qualify for free and reduced-price lunch, a population considered most at-risk. Other parents will pay the $1,800 tuition, which could go down if the $665 projection ends up being more, Wood said.
Lafayette School Corp. will continue to offer a full-day program similar to the Primary Accelerated Learning (PAL) program it had in place, superintendent Ed Eiler said.
"We have one section at each of the elementaries," Eiler said, "for the children who, when we do our assessments at the beginning of the year, we identify as the children farthest away from those who will be ready for first grade."
Additionally, Eiler said three other sections will be offered where there's the greatest limited-English population.
Eiler said the district looked into offering additional full-day programs, but the only school with enough parent interest was Earhart Elementary School, where an extended-day program will be offered for a fee.
In West Lafayette Community School Corp., the district will have three sections of full-day and three sections of half-day available at Cumberland Elementary School, superintendent Rocky Killion said.
Killion said the district will put the grant money first toward students eligible for free and reduced-price lunches. Other parents who enroll their students in full-day will pay tuition, which last year was about $2,500.
Charlotte Harrington, whose son Konrad will be in full-day at Cumberland, said she doesn't mind picking up the tab because full-day "will give him a chance to really excel."
Harrington said her son really enjoys school, so much that when pre-school ended and he realized that kindergarten didn't start up that next Monday he was upset.
"If he seemed like he'd be uncomfortable or shy or gave me any indication he wasn't ready to be away from me that long, I'd have put him in half-day," Harrington said.
"We had decided if he was ready, we'd pay for it. If you're going to spend your money on something, your child's education is not a bad place to spend it."
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