No Full-Day Kindergarten in 2012

DAYTON - Full-day kin- dergarten will not be an op- tion for the coming school year in the Dayton School District.

Superintendent Doug Johnson broke the news at a school board meeting Wednesday, July 11.

"It was a difficult deci- sion," Johnson later said. "In the end we felt it was impor- tant to continue investing in retaining all of the programs we have and providing some additional support to best serve students."

School Board Chairman Steve Martin said full-day kindergarten is one of the highest priorities for the board.

The district's budget, which was finalized earlier this month, could potentially have been re-shuffled to cre- ate funding for a program like full-day kindergarten, Johnson said. But doing so would require the district to operate at a deficit or to move money that would have otherwise gone to operations.

"On paper it looked like we could get it together," Johnson said. "But there could have been some prob- lems later on with a budget like that."

Johnson said studies done by the state suggest full-day kindergarten is an important factor for school success for many students. But basic education funding from the state only supports halfday kindergarten for now. In 2016, Johnson said, the state is expected to increase funding to provide full-day kindergarten programs for all students.

"We are aware of the tre- mendous advantage all-day kindergarten provides for these kids," Johnson said.

Martin said the decline in enrollment has strained the budget although the dis- trict has been able to retain certified and classified staff because of taxpayer support. The support hasn't been able to provide the funding neces- sary to start the full-day kindergarten program though, which has been disappointing for some parents.

"As a parent of elementa- ry-age students I can person- ally attest to the importance of full-day kindergarten, but I recognize the importance of other programs and priorities provided by the dis- trict," Martin said.

Johnson said the state is currently providing the full- day kindergarten programs for high-poverty districts, but Dayton is not eligible to receive that supplementary funding.

"I'm still a little disap- pointed because I was really looking forward to trying to have a full-day kindergarten program," Johnson said.

Despite the delay of the much-anticipated change to full-day kindergarten, Johnson said there will be a few additions to the budget that will be beneficial for students.

A recent Educational Ser- vice District grant will pay 80 percent of the salary for a full-time prevention and intervention counselor in the high school for five years. A service district grant will also pay $5,000 for about 165 hours of elementary counseling.

"It's (fewer hours) than we would like," Johnson said. "But still 165 hours more than what we've had for the last three years."

Johnson said while the counselors will not be academic, the grant provides a good opportunity to get advisers in for students espe- cially at the high school level.

"We are happy to be able to provide some counsel- ing funds for next year and some additional support staff to improve services to our teachers, students and families," Johnson said.

For now, the heating sys- tem and a recent heating, ventilation and air condi- tioning maintenance agreement with Honeywell re- mains a high-priority budget item, Johnson said.