Wallingford Considering Options for Full-Day Kindergarten Program

The Wallingford Board of Education is again exploring options of implementing a full-day kindergarten program in town.

More than 50 parents, teachers and school officials attended the board’s meeting Monday night in which a report was presented on the benefits and expectations of a full-day program, according to the Meriden Record-Journal.

The board was in favor of a full-day plan last year but it failed to generate enough support from Mayor William Dickinson Jr. and the Town Council, according to the New Haven Register.

Luther Turmelle of the New Haven Register reports that Superintendent of Schools Salvatore Menzo has unveiled several options in which the price tag could be anywhere from $262,000 to $886,000, depending on what options the Board of Education chooses. The cost of last year’s failed bid was $1.6 million.

On Monday night, board members expressed a consensus to add a full-day kindergarten program that would cost $462,000 and increase classroom sizes for kindergarten through second grade to 21 students per class, according to the Record-Journal. Class sizes in grades three to five would also increase to 23 students per class in that plan.

Read more at the Meriden Record-Journal here and the New Haven Register here.

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