Kindergarten teachers like Kelli Kneeland face a dilemma. In a classroom of 15 or 20 students, some may already be reading their first book, while others might not know how to spell their own name.
Even beyond the academic differences, teachers see students with a wide range of social skills.
โA lot of kids who come here have never been in school before,โ Kneeland said. โThey have no idea what it is to be structured.โ
The Franklin school district โ where Kneeland is in her third year teaching โ currently uses Title I education grant money to fund โinterventionโ classes. There, said Paul Smith Elementary School principal Mike Hoyt, special education staff work with students to get them caught up.
โThere are more and more kids who are ending up in those groups,โ Hoyt said. The impact continues down the road, too. He said Franklin Middle School has had more students not reaching their grade level skills.
At an October Franklin school board meeting, Superintendent Daniel Legallo suggested the district try using the Title I money on preschool classrooms.
โWe thought it might be a good way to address that issue with grant money,โ Legallo told the board. โCome to school and get prepared for learning.โ
The school board didnโt say yes or no, but asked that Legallo collect information on the idea.
During an interview on Wednesday, Legallo said the prospect of preschool classrooms is still in the โinfancy stages.โ
He said the school district will have to decide on whether it wants to replace its intervention classes with two pre-kindergarten classrooms for 4-year-olds within Paul Smith Elementary School.
โThatโll be the tough decision,โ Legallo said. If it did make that choice, however, Legallo said those new classrooms would serve between 40 and 50 new students.
The other option, he added, is to use Title I grant money to move the Franklin school districtโs existing special education preschool class from the middle school building to the elementary school, and to open it up to two classrooms.
โThat scenario would help with our special education school kids,โ Legallo said.
Hoyt, the elementary school principal, said he was on board with the new classrooms for 4-year-old students.
โSometimes you just have to bite the bullet โ you canโt keep playing catch up,โ he said. โSeveral years ago we went to all-day kindergarten and that helped our grade schoolers considerably.โ
Hoyt added, โWe need to make more changes like that to be proactive.โ
Legallo expressed similar feelings. โYou can only remediate so long before you try to fix the system โ thatโs what weโre looking at.โ
The superintendent plans to gather input and information, and then expects to present a formal proposal to the Franklin school board by February. This would be in time for the springtime due date for Title I grant applications.
New Hampshireโs Title I administrator Christopher Motika said if the Franklin school district were to request money to staff preschool classrooms, it wouldnโt be the first district to pitch the idea.
โThere are several districts across the state that do it,โ Motika said. โLaconia has a similar model.โ
Whether the proposal goes through or not, the Franklin school district is helping its students the best it can by trying to work with local daycare centers to have kids start practicing letters and numbers.
Hoyt said this is difficult, though, with more being expected of students in kindergarten.
โKindergarten over the last few years has become more academic-oriented,โ he said.
Kneeland said her students, for instance, should by the end of the school year be able to read by phonetically sounding out words.
In her classroom on Wednesday, Kneeland worked on both academic and social skills with her students. She asked students to tell her words that started with the letter of the day โ โPโ โ she read them a book, and in the middle, everyone got to dance to a song.
โItโs not just the ABCs,โ she said. โIโm really teaching them how to be people.โ
(Elodie Reed can be reached at 369-3306, ereed@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @elodie_reed.)