Full Day Kindergarten - Can We Afford It?

          You don’t have to be a parent or guardian in town to know that proponents for all day kindergarten are gaining in number and rallying for support.  The issue:  Whether the town can meet the academic, social and physical needs of students when only a fraction of kindergarten eligible children will be allowed to attend school this September on a full time basis?  The Answer:  No.  But wait, next comes the inevitable, harder question:  Can we afford to send every child?  Read on – we can’t afford not to.

            For the past several years, the Town Council has been approached to offer full day kindergarten to the children of Rocky Hill.  The rationale is that students need a strong foundation for learning in the early years to have success in school and lifelong learning.  In 2010, the State Board of Education adopted the Common Core Standards for Connecticut, making us the 46th state to recognize the importance of expecting deeper understanding and depth of knowledge at every grade level.   This came as no surprise to educators, or at least it shouldn’t have, since there was talk of this too for years.   As a town that tends to be reactive when it comes to education, we now have a “pilot program” offering a fraction of our kindergarten eligible children access to Full-Day Kindergarten, i.e., only a small percentage of students were chosen by lottery to attend an all-day class at either Stevens or West Hill Elementary School.  This begs the question:  How is this fair?  The Answer:  It’s not.

            So, just how important is Full-Day K?  Well, according to a 2012 article published by the Children’s Defense Fund, “[t]he standards students are expected to meet upon exiting kindergarten are rigorous.”  It further states, “[g]iven the new standards and the instability of funding for Full-Day K across the country, children are not guaranteed an equal opportunity for learning and could be severely handicapped in achieving school success.”  Children’s Defense Fund, The Facts about Full-Day Kindergarten, (January 2012), www.childrensdefense.org.  Pursuant to research comparing Half-Day K to Full-Day K, children in the full day programs have, among other things, “higher academic achievement in later grades… and show faster gains on literacy and language measures.” Ibid.   Overall, these students have enhanced social, emotional and behavior development.  

            There’s a popular saying: “All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten.”  Well it’s true!  Now more than ever, it’s imperative that we come together as a community to address the needs of our youngest students by focusing on prudent spending and embracing new initiatives that reduce costs thereby freeing up funds to put into education.   According to data collected as of last January, the annual expenditure per public school pupil in Connecticut was $15,353.00.  Yet, the percent of fourth graders in public schools across the state unable to read at grade level was 58.0% and the number unable to do math at grade level was 54.6%.  Even more shocking, the number of eighth graders unable to do math at grade level was 61.9%.  Sadly, more than 7,569 students between the ages of 16 to 19 were not enrolled and have not graduated from high school.  See, Children’s Defense Fund, Children in Connecticut.  (January 2012) www.childrensdefense.org/cits. 

            What does this mean for our town?  Last spring, Interim Superintendent of Schools, Mark Winzler, spoke at a Town Council meeting on the cost of education in Rocky Hill.  Mr. Winzler told the Council that Rocky Hill spends approximately $12,656 per student, and is ranked 122 out of 166 schools in the state when it comes to per pupil expenditures.  He further referenced the fact that we have dropped 50 spots since 2001 when our town was ranked 72.  At that meeting, Councilors boasted about our students’ test taking abilities and the fact that our schools are above the state average when it comes to the CMT and CAPT tests.  How can this be you ask, if our per pupil spending is far less than the state average?  The Answer:  we are, arguably, a town that “teaches to the test.”  For several weeks out of every academic year, we require our student to focus on preparing for standardized tests thereby ensuring good results. 

          Whether you believe in this practice or oppose it, my point is simply this, those test scores serve a limited purpose and cannot accurately reflect the status or needs of our schools, or our children.   If they did, we wouldn’t be spending money to rebuild our high school, at the eleventh hour, for fear of losing accreditation; we wouldn’t be teaching students in closets rather than classrooms at Stevens or moving them into safer learning areas because of fire code violations/lack of sprinklers.  If those scores are truly a measure of our greatness, we wouldn’t be having this ongoing debate over the need for Full-Day Kindergarten.  Schools systems are what attract new families to a town; and, they're what keep those families, and their local businesses from leaving town. Things haven’t always been this way in Rocky Hill.  More importantly, they don’t have to stay this way.   It is time for a new perspective on Town Council, a voice for the underrepresented families of young children.  Let’s take back our schools and heed the words of national and state experts, “[a]ll children should be guaranteed access to publicly funded Full-Day K if they are to meet the learning and work-force challenges of the 21st century.”  Ibid.  It’s time for a proactive approach to education.   It’s Time for Change.

VOTE:  LISA J. MAROTTA FOR TOWN COUNCIL   

                                      CHANGE STARTS HERE