HB 927-FN and Milford Kindergarten

I reviewed the HB 927-FN adequate education law that was signed by the governor on June 29th. These are my interpretations as to how this new law will relate to Milford. The full text of the law can be found at HB 927-FN

1. All 5 year olds will be entitled to attend public Kindergarten starting with the 2008-2009 school year. Attending Kindergarten is optional, but Milford is required to offer public Kindergarten starting in ‘08-‘09.

2. My interpretation after reading all the detail is that the minimum acceptable program that meets the definition of an adequate education is half-day Kindergarten. This law does not mandate full-day Kindergarten.

I come to this conclusion because HB 927 references ““school approval standards”…as adopted by the state board of education through administrative rules.” The current rules contain this standard for public school approval: Ed 306.25 Kindergarten. Every district shall strive to offer at least a ½ day kindergarten program to every eligible student. A kindergarten program shall comply with all pertinent provisions of Ed 306.

There is also this section that defines minimum school day duration: Ed 306.18 School Year. c) Each school with a school year option based on days shall be subject to the following requirements: (3) For each elementary school: a. The regular school day shall be 6 hours in duration with at least 5.25 hours devoted to instructional time;… d. Kindergarten sessions shall be at least 2.5 hours in duration;

3. There is a good chance that the state will provide start-up funding of some significant amount to the school districts that do not currently offer Kindergarten, but we will not know what the funding will be until after the March voting is completed. My guess is that the adequate education state funding formula will be completed just before the June 30, 2008 deadline mandated by the courts.

Since we don’t know what we will get under the new law, it would be prudent for any warrant article that is put on the ballot to assume that we will receive aid according to regular state aid formulas, such as the current 30% building aid formula. The articles should be written in a manner that allows for increased aid to be accepted and applied to the project.

4. This is not in the law, but is a practical outcome. It is likely that we will be able to set up a half-day Kindergarten program by renovating the Bales annex. Although it will be tight, it is likely that this could be done between the time a construction program is approved in March ‘08 and the start of school in September ‘08.

A full day program is much more complicated, and much more expensive. It would require the construction of a new building, which could not be completed by September of ’08. If we were to offer a full-day program, we would have to set up some sort of interim facility or program for the ’08-’09 school year. This might take the form of roughly ten portable classrooms somewhere.

Another possibility would be to fund students to attend local private Kindergartens. I suspect that this is not a viable option since the private Kindergartens would have to meet the No Child Left Behind requirements and most (if not all) of them do not. Private Kindergartens generally do not have “highly qualified” teachers on staff as mandated by NCLB.

5. Netting everything out, it is my opinion that we should offer a half-day Kindergarten program. This will meet the letter (and the spirit) of the law, and will be much more affordable than a Full-day program.

Renovating the Bales Annex is a relatively low cost solution that would be money well spent. Even if the District enrollment increases to the point where Kindergarten and First grade no longer fit into the Jacques/Bales Annex complex, we could build a new facility at that time for Kindergarten, freeing up room for First Grade.

The only exception to this thought process is that the State may provide special Kindergarten Adequate Education construction money only on an interim basis, and then rescind it later. This may be a one-time only opportunity to get a new school built at a lowered cost to the School District. The problem with this is that we won’t know until after the voting is over as to what the State has decided to do. Since we need to have a Kindergarten program in place for the ’08-’09 school year, we can’t wait to find out all the funding details.