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Third-year data to help board decide on all-day kindergarten issue
By By Dave Pappone
Superintendent of Brandon Valley Schools
Superintendent of Brandon Valley Schools
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EmailMarch 11. 2010 6:00AM
The Brandon Valley School District has been receiving increasing inquiries related to its plans for kindergarten for next year. The kindergarten screening took place last week and it has sparked heightened awareness of this topic. The questions revolve around the status of all-day kindergarten.
Three years ago, the Board of Education established a pilot program for all-day kindergarten called Kindergarten Academy at Valley Springs Elementary. The pilot program was designed to gather data on the long-term effects of all-day kindergarten compared to the half-day program. The district will not have the third year data until this spring. Preliminary data in reading and math does not show strong significant differences in how students in half-day programs perform compared to the all-day students. We will have another year of first grade data and one year of second grade data after the spring Stanford testing is complete.
The Board of Education will review the data prior to making any decisions about the efficacy of all-day kindergarten in Brandon Valley. The analysis will need to include return on investment if lasting benefits are found to exist. The question, “Could the limited resources be spent on other interventions that produce as much or more benefit?” is a crucial one. The district has operated for many years under the belief that investing money saved by having half-day kindergarten in lower class sizes in the primary grades is the best strategy. The high student achievement in the district would seem to bear that out.
The cost of adding 10 or 11 sections of kindergarten exceeds $500,000 and would be extremely hard to do in a year when the state is limiting the state aid increase to zero. Any move in the direction of all-day kindergarten would mean significant changes in class sizes in the district to create the resource to pay for it. The Board of Education will need to carefully examine the data and weigh the costs and benefits carefully before making a decision.
It is possible the board might extend the pilot one more year if there is ambiguity in the data that could be helped with more data. While this article does not answer the ultimate question, “Will there be all-day kindergarten?” I hope it helps the community understand the complexity of the decision and how it affects other aspects of the instructional program at Brandon Valley.
Three years ago, the Board of Education established a pilot program for all-day kindergarten called Kindergarten Academy at Valley Springs Elementary. The pilot program was designed to gather data on the long-term effects of all-day kindergarten compared to the half-day program. The district will not have the third year data until this spring. Preliminary data in reading and math does not show strong significant differences in how students in half-day programs perform compared to the all-day students. We will have another year of first grade data and one year of second grade data after the spring Stanford testing is complete.
The Board of Education will review the data prior to making any decisions about the efficacy of all-day kindergarten in Brandon Valley. The analysis will need to include return on investment if lasting benefits are found to exist. The question, “Could the limited resources be spent on other interventions that produce as much or more benefit?” is a crucial one. The district has operated for many years under the belief that investing money saved by having half-day kindergarten in lower class sizes in the primary grades is the best strategy. The high student achievement in the district would seem to bear that out.
The cost of adding 10 or 11 sections of kindergarten exceeds $500,000 and would be extremely hard to do in a year when the state is limiting the state aid increase to zero. Any move in the direction of all-day kindergarten would mean significant changes in class sizes in the district to create the resource to pay for it. The Board of Education will need to carefully examine the data and weigh the costs and benefits carefully before making a decision.
It is possible the board might extend the pilot one more year if there is ambiguity in the data that could be helped with more data. While this article does not answer the ultimate question, “Will there be all-day kindergarten?” I hope it helps the community understand the complexity of the decision and how it affects other aspects of the instructional program at Brandon Valley.
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