Downingtown aims to expand full-day kindergarten options - Daily Local News 2/3/2011

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

Downingtown aims to expand full-day kindergarten options
Thursday, February 3, 2011
By ERIC S. SMITH
Staff Writer

UWCHLAN — The administration of the Downingtown Area School District wants to have one full-day kindergarten class in each of its 10 elementary schools as part of a potential five-year plan.

The hope for the plan is to attract students who currently attend charter schools for kindergarten to come back to the district and in turn save the district a significant amount of money, according to Richard Fazio, chief financial officer for the district.

The district currently has 84 kindergarten students that attend charter schools, which costs the district nearly $800,000, Fazio said. The payments, of about $9,000 per student, are mandated by state law.

"We are bleeding slowly with these charter schools and the biggest part is in kindergarten," said Superintendent Lawrence Mussoline.

Mussoline said that while many students attend charter schools for kindergarten and first grade, the majority are returning to the district beginning in second grade. Fazio said Collegium Charter School, where most of the 84 students attend, provides full-day kindergarten, while Downingtown mostly provides half-day classes.

The district currently has five full-day kindergarten classes spread throughout the district, Fazio said. Those five classes are reserved for students that need additional instruction time and the district also receives funding from the state for those classes, Fazio said. The state funding is to benefit students who are socio-economically disadvantaged.

Under the proposed plan, the district would offer 10 full-day kindergarten classes, but would not preserve spaces for the students in need of additional instruction time. Mussoline said all of the classes would be chosen randomly and be "heterogeneous." He said students could be selected via a lottery system or however the school board desired.

"I am concerned that the kids who need all-day kindergarten would not be getting it," said board President Jackie Fenn. "Those are the kids who need the most instructional time."

Mussoline's proposed plan would eventually roll out full-day kindergarten for all students in the district. He said there would need to be possible construction or even modules on some elementary sites. He said it would be costly upfront, but the district would ultimately save money in the end if it could attract students away from attending charter schools for kindergarten.

Some parents, present at the finance committee meeting where the plan was introduced, said many families are sending their children to charter schools for kindergarten not only because of the full-day offerings, but also because the schools provide more child care services for before and after school. They also said these schools have more days and thus parents do not have to pay for as much childcare.

Members of the finance committee asked Mussoline and Fazio to bring them a full proposal with an initial step that the board could then formally vote upon.

Fazio said adding one full-day kindergarten class at each school would require two new teachers and cost the district about $120,000. However, if the district could bring back all 84 charter students, it could save about $500,000 even after hiring additional teachers. Fazio's calculations assumed that the 84 students were spread evenly across the district's 10 elementary schools.

To contact staff writer Eric S. Smith, send an e-mail to esmith@dailylocal.com.
URL: http://www.dailylocal.com/articles/2011/02/03/news/srv0000010828874.prt
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