Finance Review—

Full-Day Kindergarten Considered

By John Voket

One member of the Board of Finance expressed strong reservations about endorsing funding for full-day kindergarten in Newtown next school year, but it appears a majority of the board will support the proposal as part of the overall requested education budget.

The finance board, as well as the Legislative Council, have line item authority to add or reduce municipal-side budget requests. Those boards can only suggest proposed reductions to the school budget draft, however, because they only have bottom line authority regarding the education budget proposal by state law.

On March 5, finance board Chairman John Kortze polled the members in attendance (James Gaston, Jr, was absent) to gauge their feelings on that narrow aspect of the overall $70 million proposal. Four days earlier, the board heard a half-hour presentation supporting the addition of full-day kindergarten by the town’s four elementary school principals and Superintendent of Schools Janet Robinson.

On that evening, Mr Gaston and finance board member Carol Walsh were absent. Hawley Principal Jo-Ann Peters, Sandy Hook Principal Dawn Hochsprung, Head O’ Meadow Principal Barbara Gasparine, and Middle Gate Principal Christopher Geissler each participated in the presentation and a question and answer session that followed with the finance officials.

During the presentation, the four principals fully supported the inclusion of full-day kindergarten at their facilities, and reiterated the Board of Education’s unanimous support for the initiative in the current budget proposal. They collectively deemed the initiative “essential and crucial” to local students’ future.

Under questioning, Mr Kortze asked whether the principals were equipped with the facility to add on this full-day program, which would eliminate the current half-day program districtwide. Ms Hochsprung replied that she is prepared to “make it happen” at her facility, while Ms Peters said she would need two additional classrooms to open a full-day program at her school.

Dr Robinson said that the school district realized enough savings from the new school transportation contract to offset much of the cost to implement full-day kindergarten. And she said no modifications to any buildings would be required to accommodate the program.

Only new furnishings would need to be acquired, Dr Robinson said.

During the presentation, Mr Kortze said when he went on the Internet to try and find pro and con data on the benefits of such a program, it appeared that there were conflicting findings on the long-term benefits.

Ms Hochsprung replied that the taxpayers could either support the program now, or pay the cost for the “remediation of unprepared students” later.

Mr Kortze then asked if the first-round budget failed, and principals had to weigh in on whether to delay the program’s implementation or sacrifice in other areas of their budget, all four principals said they would opt to keep the full-day kindergarten.

On March 5, after a lengthy meeting that concentrated heavily on the proposed school budget, Mr Kortze asked each finance board member in attendance to weigh in on the full-day kindergarten proposal.

“It’s a big program and it’s going to have an impact going forward,” Mr Kortze said. “And it’s a big part of the [district’s requested] increase, so I’m interested in hearing.”

Ms Walsh said she was in favor of the proposal.

“The Board of Ed was elected to make those decisions,” she said, adding that if the finance board acted to reduce funding in the proposal to initiate the program, that voters would not have the opportunity to weigh in on the issue. “We’ve heard a lot of support. It’s not representative, but we should give it a chance to go before the people of the town.”

Finance board member Harrison Waterbury agreed that it was a school board decision. But he said he spoke to his daughter, who taught both half- and full-day kindergarten, and that she noticed a significant difference in the academic performance with children who went full-time.

He was also impressed by the fact that the principals were all committed to keeping the program, even in the face of further reductions that would potentially come if the first-round budget proposal failed at referendum.

Mr Oparowski said he could not find a way to separate the educational decision from the financial decision.

“You listen to the educators and they tell you all this stuff — they’re supposed to be the professionals,” he said. “But I’m old-fashioned and I can’t divorce myself from what I grew up with. The major contributor to somebody’s education is parent involvement. You can’t buy that — I think full-day kindergarten is a luxury.”

Vice Chair Joe Kearney agreed about not being able to separate the cost from the perceived benefit, but said he would be more inclined support the measure if he could see where the cost to implement the full-day program was offset by reductions elsewhere.

“We need to start subtracting,” he said. “But the time is now to put a dent in the growth of the education budget and areas of the town budget where it is needed.”

Mr Kortze said he took to heart the comment about the costs of remediation, but the research he reviewed did not offer a lot of support for increased benefits to students beyond the third grade.

“We only have bottom line authority, so when we get to the end of the line here it’s going to be a fixed number,” he said. “Being in that 50/50 spot, it gets down to the curriculum and what we make of the program.”

The finance chair said he was glad for the first time the school board did not blindly designate a chunk of money and left it up to the school administration to carry on from there.

“They’re going to go back and talk about it, so even if we move forward it sounds like there is a mechanism in place to vet it even further,” Mr Kortze said.

Listen to an audio transcript of the finance board’s full-day kindergarten presentation at Newtownbee.com.