Full Day Kindergarten Approved for 2012-13 School Year

Starting in September 2012 kindergarten students in the will be the first class to attend a instead of the current modified schedule.

The program was unanimously approved by the Board of Education during Wednesday night's meeting to replace the modified schedule for students at  (NBC). The current schedule has students attend three full days and two half days. Students in either Session A or Session B both attend a full-day on Wednesdays.

"When the topic of full-day kindergarten first came up by son was three," board member Sheli Dansky said. "He's now in his 30s so it is with great pleasure that i second the motion [to approve]."

According to Superintendent Dr. Tova Ben Dov there are numerous educational advantages of moving to a full day kindergarten program. Among the advantages is that a full day program leads to better succes in eighth grade when students begin with a more indepth kindergarten vocabulary lesson.

Also since the district currently has 35 ESL students, a longer school day would allow for more instruction time and a greater exposure to the English language for students.

"There would be less pressure to complete instruction in a single lesson," Ben Dov said previously. "It would also ease the transition to first grade as students would be more familiar with school procedures."

Still in the planning process is how to best handle the traffic flow during after school dismissal.

"Mike Henzel and I met with Lt. Michael Walker to address the traffic issues brought up for a full day kindergarten," Ben Dov said. "The plans are still in progress on how to mitigate some of the traffic expectations at dismissal."

At a previous meeting, Henzel had proposed to stagger the dismissal times with Roosevelt-bound children at 2:30pm and the Cherry Hill-bound students leaving at 2:40pm.

There is no cost to the district for the switch to a full-day schedule as all the faculty members are already employed. Depending on enrollment, the program could have up to eight kindergarten classrooms with a maximum of 21 students each.