Kindergarten for full day may expand as an option

LOGAN — The idea of full-day kindergarten is expected to live on in State Board of Education discussions — but likely only on a small-scale model.

The board today is expected to discuss whether to examine full-day kindergarten as an optional program targeted at students at risk for academic failure, be it due to language barriers, disability or poverty.

State education officials estimate that it would cost $5.6 million to put it in high-poverty schools, for example.

Chairman Kim Burningham in a Thursday meeting said he planned to suggest putting together a committee to tweak a resolution, brought to the board last month, to reflect that intent. The board plans to discuss the resolution in January.

His comments followed a more than hour discussion on the pluses of full-day kindergarten, where districts stand on the matter, and parent concerns over mandating such programs.

The board last month discussed a resolution calling for a study of the practice in Utah, plus costs and priorities to phase in the concept. Burningham said Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. supports it — his working group on student achievement studied it at length — and that he expects to see the concept embedded in the governor's forthcoming budget.

Fifteen Utah school districts, including Weber, Ogden and Jordan, offer full-day kindergarten programs, most with the help of federal Title I dollars reserved for low-income schools. Nationally, 10 states mandate it. And 60 percent of American kindergartners attend school all day, the State Office of Education has reported, citing the U.S. Census Bureau.

Research gathered nationally and in Utah, as Box Elder and Salt Lake City district officials presented Thursday, shows full-day kindergarten helps level the playing field between students who are disadvantaged and those who are not. The officials said full-day kindergarten can close achievement gaps before they take hold — a far cheaper option, socially and financially, than trying to catch a child up later on.

But a group of about two dozen parents, led by Cache County Republican Party vice chairwoman Shelly Locke, feared parents' rights could be placed at risk.

"Mothers implore you as a state board to protect our right to continue to (preserve childhood) for the sake of the fabric of the family and all of society," Locke said, urging the board to maintain half-day kindergarten options. "Young children belong in the arms of their parents."

The Sutherland Institute, a conservative-minded Utah public policy group, echoes the sentiment. The group last year proposed a $500 tax credit for families keeping their kindergarten-age children at home.