Milford School Board to Study Kindergarten Options

After years of not supporting public kindergarten, the School Board voted at the 5/21/07 meeting to study the options for implementing public kindergarten in town!!!!


One of the agenda items for the meeting was School Board Goals. We have a standard process each year to implement yearly goals, and this agenda item was a part of the normal process. A typical process flow is to set annual goals shortly after the election, set action items and schedules a month or two later, monitor the action items during the year, and then summarize the results at the end of the year. This agenda item was part of the step for setting action items and schedules.

We started the process this year by setting the goals shortly after the election. During that step in the process, I had proposed that the District study the implementation of public kindergarten in Milford. The purpose of the study was to identify the costs of the various options to see if there was a way to implement public kindergarten at a modest cost. This proposal was defeated by a vote of 2-2-1, with Bert Becker and I in favor of the study, Len Mannino and Bob Willette against the study, and Peter Bragdon abstaining due to his wife working at a private kindergarten. This lack of a three vote majority has been the norm for years on the Board.

I submitted a new proposal during this past meeting. The new proposal was very similar to the previous one, but there was a significant difference in the timing that led to it's passage. The key point was that after the previous motion was defeated, the state House of Representatives added half-day public kindergarten to the definition of an adequate education. The bill is now winding it's way through the legislative process and is currently undergoing review by the state Senate.

As of today, it seems reasonable to forecast that the bill that defines an adequate education will include half-day public kindergarten in the final language. There are two significant unknowns about this result: 1) if this will mean that half-day public kindergarten will be required to be offered by each school district, and 2) if the state will be required to pay for this requirement since it is an "unfunded new mandate."

Because there is a now a reasonable chance that the Milford School District will be required to offer half-day kindergarten to all students that want to attend, it makes sense for us to figure out how to accomplish this requirement. Len and Bob both changed their minds because of this potential looming requirement, and they voted in favor of the study.

The final language of the motion was "I move that the board adopt as a goal for the year that we investigate the costs, feasibility, advantages and disadvantages of potential public Kindergarten options. The purpose of this goal would be for the board to be able to have a proposal ready in the event that public Kindergarten in Milford is mandated by state law. The goal shall not make any recommendation for or against public Kindergarten."

The last sentence was added to my original motion to make it clear that the purpose of the investigation was to study the options, not to advocate for public Kindergarten. Both Len and Bob are philosophically against public Kindergarten, and they wanted it made clear that they were not voting in favor of public Kindergarten. They both voted in favor of the amended motion to show their support for being ready if we are required to move forward with offering public Kindergarten.

We will set up the action items and schedules for the goal at the next meeting. It is likely that this will take the form of appointing a committee to study the task with a report due by late October or so. This will give us the information needed to place a warrant article on next year's ballot.

There are three basic kindergarten options that will be reviewed:

1. Renovate the Bales Annex for use by First grade or Readiness classrooms, and put Kindergarten classes in the west end of the Jacques school. This needs to be done in this sequence since Kindergarten classrooms need to be slightly larger than First grade classrooms to qualify for building aid. This option would be the least expensive by far. The big negative for this one is that this will be a tight fit. There are only four classrooms in the Bales Annex, and for long term needs, five or six classrooms may be needed. The space issues need to be closely reviewed to determine if this option is viable, or if there is just not enough space to make it work.

2. Build a new Kindergarten building, probably on the Brox property somewhere near Heron Pond. This option will create the nicest facility, but would be the most expensive.

3. Find a facility somewhere in town that could be purchased and renovated into a Kindergarten facility. I have no idea if there is anything that is suitable that would be available, so this one might not even be a real option. We need to do a survey to determine if something is possible or not.

All in all, I was very pleased with the vote. I have been in favor of public Kindergarten for a very long time, and it now seems like we are on a path that will eventually lead to public Kindergarten in town.