Watertown May Lose a $97,000 State Grant for Full-Day Kindergarten

The Watertown Public Schools may lose a $97,000 state grant for full-day kindergarten, school officials learned this week, potentially putting the district that much deeper in the hole.

The grant is used to pay one-third of the salaries of two kindergarten teachers and for five part-time instructional aides, said Director of Business Services Allie Altman.

Assistant Superintendent Jean Fitzpatrick said the proposal in the House of Representatives would change the criteria to qualify for the grant.

“They are changing the rules in the middle of the game,” Fitzpatrick said.

The state may increase proportion of low-income students a district must have to qualify for the grant, Fitzpatrick said. Just over 30 percent of Watertown’s school population qualifies, she said, and the threshold would increase to 35 percent, from what she has seen.

The issue arose at the School Committee Budget & Finance Subcommittee meeting Wednesday night.

The loss of the grant would affect other areas where officials hope to restore cuts, including the elementary school music, said Superintendent Ann Koufman. The district has $178,000 in the budget for which officials must still find ways to fund, and this would increase that amount to $275,000.

School Committee Chairman Tony Paolillo said he heard the change was made to help certain districts.

“From what I understand the change is to get money out of the suburban communities and into the cities,” Paolillo said.

The frustrating thing, Paolillo said, is Watertown considered charging a fee for the full-day kindergarten program, but decided against doing so because it would lose the state grant.

“Now we may lose the grant, anyway,” Paolillo said.

School officials said they would talk to Watertown’s state representatives – Jonathan Hecht and John Lawn – to ask them to try to preserve the grant.