The East Penn School Board reviewed a presentation by Assistant Superintendent Kristen Campbell at the April 25 meeting to discuss district-wide, all-day kindergarten programs.

Campbell’s team has been working on a proposed timeline toward enacting a full-day kindergarten schedule into the East Penn School District. The proposed timeline, if approved by the board, would see full-day kindergarten classrooms by fall 2018.

According to Campbell, this full-day program will be a “tremendous benefit to our youngest population of learners.”

Currently, only two full-day kindergarten classrooms are available for children’s education. The majority of kindergarten programs in practice now are held for half days.

In 2003, East Penn offered the full day option at Lincoln Elementary School. A few years later, in 2007, a second full-day classroom was added to the school district at Lower Macungie Elementary School. When Lower Macungie Elementary School closed in 2010, Alburtis Elementary School adopted the full-day program.

The proposed timeline requires two years of research, starting this year and going through 2017, followed by two years of implementation, as per Campbell.

Campbell further broke down the schedule for the board, explaining what kind of research will be done and necessary resources required to implement the program by fall 2018.

During the research stage, a committee of parents, teachers and other school district officials would look into the benefits of the program. Campbell said they would look into neighboring districts to see how their full-day programs work. The committee would also spend time looking at how the current two programs in East Penn School District are run.

The proposed plan is to have enough information to present to the board by January 2017. Following that meeting, efforts will go toward budgeting costs for curriculum, faculty, facility space and transportation. Campbell’s team hopes to have a proposed budget by December 2017. Upon approval, the committee will then begin to fill in staff and see about getting full-day kindergarten on the spring 2018 registration form.

Director Ziad Munson asked Campbell what the largest obstacle would be, cost withstanding. She said the committee will really need to focus on what makes a full-day kindergarten apart from a half-day program.

Director Paul Champagne suggested Campbell and her team look into the current full-day kindergarten classrooms. He said there is already 10 years of data waiting to be reviewed. Champagne also said he would be interested in learning how the students from full-day kindergarten compare to their peers who attend half-day programs. Campbell said she would consider this in her research.

Other concerns about full-day kindergarten included state laws regarding curriculum, the age cut-off date to start school, demand and the effectiveness of the program. All these items will be considered in the research and presented to the board when completed.

Board President Alan Earnshaw added there will be four seats up for election in December 2017. He said the proposed timeline might not run as smoothly because of these elections. Earnshaw said he does not think it wise to either rush the timeline and have the current board push a new program on a new board with little knowledge of the project, or wait until the new board is enacted and have them make a big decision without having been to the previous presentations.

Campbell said all of this will be considered as they move in to their researching phase.