Full-day kindergarten bill to be heard again by House committee

SALT LAKE CITY — The House Education Committee opted Wednesday to hold a bill intended to maximize funds used for a full-day kindergarten program. The committee will review it and take action on it at its next meeting.

Rep. Johnny Anderson, R-Taylorsville, is sponsoring HB111 that amends current statute to specify that only at-risk students can be eligible for full-day kindergarten funded by the state.

The Legislature has funded a pilot optional extended day program for four years that is set to run out this summer. He said that should the program be extended, he would like to see some changes made in how it's operated.

Anderson said some school districts are using the $7.5 million appropriated for the current pilot program to instruct children who are already proficient, and those students aren't benefiting from the funds as much as others could.

"Thirty-five percent of the kids enrolled are children who actually had the need to be there," he said.

Anderson said the students with a learning gap are the ones who fail an assessment for letter-recognition, among other things, before they enter school. But some educators countered that there are children who pass that assessment but are still at-risk for falling behind.

Sara Krebs, a literacy specialist in Cache County District said she knows the assessment inside and out, and has seen students pass it only to struggle in other areas. She also said the bill isn't flexible enough, since it assumes schools will have full-day kindergarten, yet her district has seen results by simply extending the day by 30 minutes for students at risk.

Much of the discussion centered on Anderson's plan to have students in the program enroll in a morning half-day class and an afternoon half-day class rather than create a specific full-day class at participating schools. He said that's a way of stretching dollars even further and students can still get the benefit.

Anderson, who operates a preschool, said he has seen the benefits of recurrent lessons, and knows it can only help at-risk students.

"Repetition in early learning absolutely benefits the child," he said.

Some on the committee wondered if that was the best strategy, even if it meant a cost savings.

"I can't quite grasp the sense that just repeating the same program … is as rich," said Rep. Carol Moss, D-Salt Lake. "Even kindergarten kids would say 'we already did that.'"