Administrators recommend dropping OJR's full-day kindergarten-Daily Local News 1/13/2011

The Daily Local (dailylocal.com), Serving Chester County, PA



Administrators recommend dropping OJR's full-day kindergarten

Thursday, January 13, 2011

SOUTH COVENTRY — Administrators are recommending that the Owen J. Roberts School Board discontinue a full-day kindergarten pilot program, and institute a permanent program that incorporates full-day kindergarten only for the district's neediest students.

Superintendent Joel DiBartolomeo made the recommendation at a board committee of the whole meeting Monday night. The board will vote on it at the regularly scheduled meeting on Jan. 24.

DiBartolomeo's recommendation outlined three instructional opportunities that would be made available to students at the kindergarten level. Those include: a half-day program for most students; a full-day program serving a maximum of 36 qualifying students at East Coventry Elementary School for 2011-2012; and an extended-day program for qualifying students at all other elementary schools.

He added that parents can create their own options by supplementing the district's half-day program "with one provided in the home, at a school-based YMCA program, or one of the other kindergarten centers operating in the community," DiBartolomeo said.

The full-day kindergarten pilot program was established as a two-year program in East Coventry Elementary School in 2008. It was extended for a third year so that the board and administration could more fully evaluate the program's outcomes.

According to a report issued to the board by DiBartolomeo, students who had attended full-day kindergarten performed comparably on literacy assessments to those in the half-day session. Full-day students tested better in math at the end of the kindergarten program, but not as well on first-grade assessments.

"Some of the academic benefits of full-day kindergarten are short-lived as gains fade over the summer and differences between full-day and half-day programs disappear by the conclusion of first grade," the report stated.

DiBartolomeo pointed out that both economic constraints and space limitations in the district's five elementary schools — some of which are already at or over capacity — would make it difficult to establish a district-wide full-time kindergarten program at this time.

However, in his report, DiBartolomeo emphasized that "the discussion about kindergarten programming should not be framed as a choice between full-day or half-day kindergarten. The question we should be asking, in my view, is 'How can we best match our kindergarten program options to the needs of our kindergarten age students given the set of conditions within which we are currently operating?'"

He presented five bullet points related to his recommendation. The first calls for maintaining two full-time classrooms at East Coventry Elementary School, which has the district's highest population of low-income children. Those children have been shown to benefit most from full-day kindergarten.

Students would be selected through a screening process, and no more than 36 students would be enrolled. Research shows that full-day programs are most effective with small class sizes.

Since class size is important, the recommendation calls for limiting all half-day classes to no more than 20 students.

A third bullet point proposes continuing extended-day kindergarten programs for students who qualify in all other elementary schools. The extended day program has children attending both morning and afternoon sessions.

A fourth component of the proposal would be to provide each elementary school with a part-time kindergarten language arts and math support teacher (KLAM) to reduce class size for half-day programs during the literacy and mathematics lessons.

The final bullet point recommends expanding an existing four-week summer program that currently serves only special education students. The extended-year program would be made available to 40 qualifying students between kindergarten and first grade. This would cost about $23,000, DiBartolomeo said.

The recommendation also has a class size component for other grades, limiting class size to 20 students in first grade and 23 in second and third grades.

Several board members raised concerns about the homogeneous nature of the full-day kindergarten classes, which will include only children struggling academically.

"This is going to be a very big challenge to our teachers," said board member Rose Bilinski. "I hope we put professional support in place."

DiBartolomeo said the program is similar to those being done successfully in other districts, including West Chester and Great Valley. He also said that qualified teachers would be assigned to the classes and they would be given adequate support.

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