Council Rock Considers Elementary Enrollment, Full-Day Kindergarten

Will Council Rock close an elementary school, or leave all the schools open and provide full-day kindergarten in the future?

All of those options were discussed Thursday evening but no decisions were made. Further discussions will resume next month.

During the Thursday board meeting, Council Rock Superintendent Robert Fraser provided an overview of elementary school enrollment and outlined the cost and feasibility of full-day kindergarten, which is currently under consideration in the district.

Since a “significant amount” of information was presented during the meeting, Fraser said the community, staff and board will have a month to process the data before any level of “formal action” is taken.

The board is expected to assess the data and ”refine the focus” at its Nov. 5 meeting.

Considerations include:

• Keeping all elementary schools open and provide full-day kindergarten 
• Closing one or more elementary school, including Rolling Hills and/or Wrightstown

“Please know that, regardless of what decisions are ultimately made, no changes will be implemented until the 2017-18 school year,” Fraser said in a letter to the school community on Friday.

Many in the community are pushing for full-day Kindergarten, which would require 18 additional classrooms that are currently available, according to Fraser’s presentation.

“Sufficient space is available, as efficiencies have identified up to 24 full-size classrooms. Additionally, three classrooms would be available that are currently used for the Champions program,” according to the presentation.

Amy McIntyre, a local schools advocate who operates the Council Rock Parents Facebook page, said she found Fraser’s presentation “detailed, methodical, analytical, and informative.”

She said it is becoming increasingly evident that Council Rock needs to implement full-day Kindergarten, which is currently being offered by 77 percent of Pennsylvania school districts, including 17 of the top 50.

“I really do feel that full day kindergarten is inevitable. CRSD is not the type of district or community that will stand for being the last to implement something that is beneficial for children,” McIntyre said in an email to Patch. “There will never be a less expensive time to offer full-day Kindergatrten at Council Rock because we happen to have all the available capacity we need to implement it. Seize the opportunity.”

To provide full-day Kindergarten, the district would need to add 23 professional staff, costing $3,285,941. Council Rock would then receive $362,538 in state reimbursement for a net additional annual cost of $2,923,403, according to the presentation. That equates to a 2 percent tax increase, administrators said.

Click here to view the full presentation.