Extended Day Kindergarten Discussions

At the Board meeting this week we voted to extend kindergarten at Northeast to the extended day format for every student.

This means that the kids will get an extra 50-55 minutes of focused instruction every day. Additionally they will get lunch, which means that our free and reduced lunch kindergartners will now have at least one solid meal.

For many of the kids in the Northeast school district that is a serious concern. I've talked to a lot of parents about the idea and I know there are some concerns. First, let me say that the District has been using the extended day model at Maple Street for a few years now and it is definitely showing some improvement in the screenings we are doing on the kids.

Second, we definitely understand this could make transportation a little more difficult. We are trying to give parents enough time to adjust to the idea so that they can make whatever transportation changes are needed. If there really are remaining issues I'd urge you to talk to the school administration.

I've been asked if we will extend this to the other three Elementary schools. My honest answer is I hope so, but I don't know. I would like every student at every school to have the same educational opportunities. The unfortunate truth is that Maple Street and Northeast historically perform the poorest on the CMTs and we need ways to start addressing that. If it's good for Maple Street and Northeast though it should be good for all our kids. I am going to ask the administration in the upcomming budget to extend the program to all 5 schools. Hopefully the logistics can work in every school so that we can start building a great foundation for all the kids. That is ultimately the point. We know extended day kindergarten isn't going to improve CMTs this year. What it is going to do is give these kids the building blocks so that three years from now they will have success on the test.Speaking of logistics, I've heard (and asked!) the question why we can't bring back full day kindergarten. Five years ago we had at least one section of full day at every elementary school but the BoE at that time cut it for budget reasons. Lake Street had it for one additional year funded on a grant, but that is the last time we had it in district.

In the meantime school populations have shifted and, even more importantly, we now run pre-school classrooms at all the schools. Logistically we no longer have the room in many of the schools to bring full-day kindergarten back. I wish we did. I wish I could bring it back as an option for every school and let parents decide like they used to. I just don't know how we can. I'd love to hear some ideas if you have them.

I haven't really gotten into the CMTs and improvement plans for other grade levels for a reason. Quite honestly the information I have is the same as everyone else. We are going to be discussing the results and plans for the district over the next few weeks and I'll be able to talk more about it then. I know the numbers are, in a lot of cases, bad. None of us like them. We ARE going to improve them. Doing anything else is a disservice to our kids and our community.

The opinions expressed here are strictly my own and do not necessarily represent the opinion of the Board of Education.