The Dunbarton school board was unable to come up with a way to continue full-day kindergarten for the next school year.
The board voted to revert to a half-day program during a special meeting held Wednesday night after members discussed whether the full-day program could be sustained with a projected increase in students in kindergarten and sixth-grade classes.
Options like holding full-day programs two or three days a week and sticking all 22 projected students in one room were thrown around at Wednesday’s meeting, but the board ultimately decided against the all-day program altogether.
“The board is very disappointed we will not be able to offer full-day kindergarten next year,” Dunbarton school board Chairwoman Deborah Trottier said.
SAU 67 Superintendent Dean Cascadden said the school’s administrators must now hold another registration period to see how many students remain in the program without an all-day option.
He noted half-day programs can be difficult for working families to schedule child care around and said if the number drops low enough, a decision will have to be made whether to offer just morning or afternoon programs. Parents will be able to indicate which section would work better for them during registration, which would be factored into the decision, but ultimately the administration would decide.
For parents like Dunbarton resident Todd Welch, who said his daughter will be going into kindergarten next year, the decision means keeping his daughter at the Early Enrichment Center in Concord, which costs him $200 a week. He was concerned that a half-day program would not include as stringent a curriculum as a full-day program and said the board could have worked out another solution.
The board attempted to fix the space issue with a warrant article for town meeting that would have raised about $97,200 to send up to eight sixth-graders to Bow Memorial School a year early. The article would have allowed the full-day kindergarten program to continue for another year.
School board member Clem Madden said the vote was vague, however, because it was unclear whether a vote against the article meant voting against the funding or full-day kindergarten altogether. He also said the board could decide whether 22 students was too many for a kindergarten classroom, despite the district’s policy on class sizes. The district follows the state’s guidelines for kindergarten through second grade, which recommends no more than 25 students per class, but strives for no more than 20 students.
(Caitlin Andrew can be reached at 369-3309, candrews@cmonitor.com or on Twitter at @ActualCAndrews.)