The committee overwhelmingly found that kindergarten teachers felt if they had more time they’d be able to structure the day differently and offer more activities to students.
Last year, members of the Moorestown Board of Education asked administration to investigate what implementing full-day kindergarten might look like. At the most recent board meeting, Superintendent Scott McCartney and Carole Butler, director of curriculum and instruction, presented the first glimpse.
The district formed a committee with each elementary school represented by a principal and two teachers. The committee overwhelmingly found kindergarten teachers felt if they had more time they’d be able to structure the day differently and offer more activities to students.
McCartney said the goal isn’t to jam first- and second-grade skills into the curriculum. Instead of condensing a lot of content into a half-day window, teachers can address students’ other developmental needs throughout the course of the school day.
“Rather than trying to condense a hyper-focused academic program into two and a half hours, this gives us the ability to [address] the whole student,” McCartney said.
McCartney said throughout these conversations, they had to be realistic about what implementing full-day kindergarten would cost. He said the extended-day program brings in approximately $600,000 each year, so they’d be looking at a $600,000 hole in the budget.
The program would also require additional staff, materials and equipment. Between the loss of revenue and these projected costs, administration anticipates the program will cost around $900,000.
The district currently offers a half-day program, but about six years ago, Butler and Director of Special Education David Tate approached the district with the idea of offering an extended day program. The tuition-based extended-day program generates nearly $600,000 annually for the district.
Currently, half-day and extended-day students are taught in the same classrooms. In the morning, students learn reading, writing, math, social studies, sciences and other core concepts. At 11:40 a.m., the half-day students leave while the extended-day students have lunch and recess before returning to the classroom.
The district’s kindergarten teachers informed administration that during this time after recess, they are able to apply concepts they taught earlier in the day, offer interactive play, and students generally have more opportunities to socialize.
Butler said these teachers see there are social disadvantages for kids who don’t stay. While these students are receiving all of the important curriculum, they are missing out on other important elements, Butler said.
With the $900,000 cost in mind, administration took a look at how they could make this fiscally feasible. McCartney said one of the options they’re considering is expanding the district’s pre-K program into a tuition-based, full-day program to help re-create the revenue they’d be losing. However, to do this, they’d need additional classroom space.
McCartney said they looked at options where they could add classrooms, but found that most of the elementary schools are landlocked between wetlands, buffers, deed restrictions and a variety of other factors inhibiting expansion.
The administration is also giving some consideration to restructuring grade configurations. One proposal would have the district’s elementary schools going from pre-K to second grade; the Upper Elementary School going from third to fifth grade and William Allen Middle School going from sixth through eighth grade. Using that model, they were able to create three to five classrooms in every school, which would provide sufficient space for pre-K and kindergarten classes, McCartney said.
The last option McCartney presented last Tuesday night was creating a new building to house just pre-K and kindergarten. He said the space would serve as an early childhood center, but this would require the district to either find property or retrofit a current building.
McCartney said they expect to present more definitive numbers on the cost of each of these projects at the next board meeting. He said the operational budget is allowed to go up approximately $1.2 million, so this $900,000 would only leave around $300,000 for other increases and expenses.
“In order to do any of this, obviously the finances are a challenge,” McCartney said.
While they know one option is not implementing full-day kindergarten, McCartney said they hope this is not the outcome of these conversations because they see value in offering it.
“At what point do we say, ‘This something we should be doing,’ and at what point does that the state of New Jersey say to us, ‘This something you must be doing,’ so we want to be ahead of that conversation,” McCartney said.
The next meeting of the Moorestown Board of Education will take place on Tuesday, Feb. 19 at 7 p.m. in the Media Center at William Allen Middle School.
