FeedsNorthville looks at full-day kindergarten
Staff Writer
A move to full-day kindergarten classes might be on the horizon for Northville Public Schools.
Prompted by a proposed school aid funding cut of 50 percent per pupil for half-day kindergarten students, Assistant Superintendent of Schools Mary Kay Gallagher said that the Northville School Board was weighing options carefully, and examining the benefits and potential pitfalls of full day kindergarten for the 2010-11 school year.
“It’s one of our proposed district goals for the 2008-09 school year to study additional programming options- which includes a look at full-day versus partial day kindergarten,” Gallagher said.
Based on current projections, Northville Schools, which currently enrolls approximately 450 half-day kindergarten students and employs the equivalent of 11 full-time teachers would have to double the early childhood staff in order to accommodate the switch. Gallagher said that cost analysis of the issue was also under consideration.
Executive Director for Elementary Education in Wayne-Westland Dr. Sally Perkins said that eight schools in the Wayne-Westland school district already utilize the full-day format with successful results. Perkins said that moving to full-day kindergarten classes would require districts to hire more early childhood staff, but felt that it also gave students a leg up on achieving grade level goals.
“If you have one class in the A.M. and one class in the P.M. and then you decide to have all day classes, of course there’s more expense because you’re adding one more teacher,” Perkins said. “The parents seem very receptive to it. And the kids are getting the additional hours of schooling and getting used to the school setting a lot quicker. At the beginning of the school year there is some adjusting for the students, but I wouldn’t necessarily call that a disadvantage. We’ve had success with this program.”
Full-time state funding would also be provided for kindergarten students who attended at least 60 percent of the day. Gallagher said that the district was most concerned with designing a quality program that would best help students to excel.
“We definitely feel that we could design a full-day program which could meet the needs of students,” Gallagher said. “It’s something we’re very conscious of. Especially with all the focus on it at the state level, we’ll definitely take a careful, thoughtful look at it.”
