East Longmeadow School Committee considers free full-day kindergarten

Date: 1/8/2015

EAST LONGMEADOW – Free full-day kindergarten for all children throughout the school district was a major point of preliminary discussion during the School Committee’s Jan. 5 meeting in relation to the district’s fiscal year 2016 (FY16) budget needs.

Superintendent of Schools Gordon Smith said in order for full-day kindergarten for all students to be realized there would need to be formal approval by the School Committee.

“Before we can get to those discussions, I think we probably have to have discussions with [the] Appropriations [Committee] as well as continue to develop our budget and say, ‘You know, here’s an element of the budget that’s somewhat unique for this year because our bond for the kindergarten classrooms; we’re going to finish the payment this year,’” he added.

The 10-year bonding was used to construct eight modular and permanent kindergarten classrooms at Meadow Brook Elementary School, Smith explained.

“When we built those classrooms we were able to offer our regular half-day program and for parents who wanted to pay tuition, we were able to offer full-day kindergarten,” he added.

The tuition that is received by the district enters into a revolving account that must go toward the kindergarten program exclusively and is used to pay the wages of two teachers and one paraprofessional, Smith noted

“It also has, annually, helped pay for the bond payment that the town owes on that land,” he explained. “Now, because we don’t have all our personnel in the revolving account, now is the time to say, ‘Okay, we have these classrooms. We have a strong interest in town to go to full-day kindergarten. Now is the time to figure out the cost for full-day kindergarten and how do we start to build our budget including that, if that’s the way the town wants to go, the way the School Committee wants to go, and [the] Appropriations [Committee] also is a part of that discussion.”

There will be funds in the revolving account available for full-day kindergarten if it is approved, Smith added. The revolving fund would include an amount in the six-figure range, which would act as seed money for full-day kindergarten.

Smith said the revolving account would eventually close after several years if full-day kindergarten is approved. Each employee being paid with money from the revolving would slowly be added to the operating budget, potentially one employee per year.

If full-day kindergarten is approved, half-day kindergarten would no longer be an option, he added.

The amount of Chapter 70 funding is also dependent on whether a district has full-day or half-day kindergarten, Assistant Superintendent for Business Theresa Olejarz said. If the district decides to implement full-day kindergarten during FY16, Chapter 70 funding would increase in FY17. 

School Committee member Elizabeth Marsian-Boucher proposed the idea for decreasing the tuition for full-day kindergarten rather than adding the cost of full-day kindergarten to the district’s annual budget.

“I’m not trying to make money off the kindergarten kids but we have all those extra teachers and paraprofessionals because of this,” she added.

Smith said if a staff member was added to the revolving account, generally the district works with the town to add that individual into the operating budget.

“However, when budgets got extremely tight over the last few years that has not happened,” he added. “You can’t take this leap until we discuss this with Appropriations.”

Smith said if a full-day kindergarten was implemented another teacher would not likely be needed. However, that decision is based on the numbers in the budget related to the district’s kindergarten program.

In other business, the School Committee discussed capital plan priorities with the first priority being replacement buses for the district, followed by classroom bathroom project to add hot water at Mountain View Elementary School, and classroom furniture at Mapleshade Elementary School.

The fourth priority item is new classroom furniture at the high school, which was originally the tenth item on the committee’s priority list. The estimated cost for that project is $59, 454.

The School Committee also recently received a notice from the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) that it was not eligible to be entered into its program, which would include reimbursement for the construction of a potential new high school, Smith said.

“You’re [currently] focusing on the instructional environment,” he added.