UPDATE- Wow! That was fast. I got an email from an astute reader who pointed out that I had not subtracted the amount of the current 1/2 day program. I have revised the post and the spreadsheet to reflect the difference. Changes in italics, BT
There has been some discussion between the School Committee, Select Board and Finance Committee about implementing a full day kindergarten program for our schools.This link has a presentation from the school department about full day kindergarten(MS word, .docx file) The discussion has focused on the one-time costs that are incurred when kicking off a program that increases the student population. These one-time costs occur because Chapter 70 school aid lags a growth in student population by one year. Dartmouth’s foundation budget for FY10 is based upon the student census in November of FY09. So a program that increases the number of students is not reimbursed until the following school year. Some have referred to this as the “startup” cost.
I was interested in what that cost was, so I ran a few numbers through a spreadsheet and found that the costs are significant, but not astronomical. Using the FY10 foundation for Dartmouth, the startup cost for a full day kindergarten program would be just less than $250K. The total cost to taxpayers the first year is about $2.06 million ($1.27 million more than the current 1/2 day) and that drops to $1.8 million the following year ($1 million more than the current 1/2 day) when the new kindergarten students are counted in the foundation.
An increase in the school budget of $1.0 million would require an override in my opinion since there is no place to find that amount within the departmental operating budgets. I think that an increase of that magnitude should be put to the voters in any case. If the town decides ...
... that having a full day kindergarten program is worth the added expense, the override will pass. I would support an increase in taxes to provide full day kindergarten. I believe that an investment in early childhood education is the biggest bang that one can get from additional spending.
You can see the figures that I used on the spreadsheet at this link. A word on how I arrived at these figures. I had to make an assumption. The assumption was how many children would attend full day. I chose 320 as that number. The increase in cost is the right hand columns and is the cost of the full day program minus the cost of the current 1/2 day program. I got the foundation budget numbers (per student amounts, no. of students in ½ day) from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education website and I have attached them as a separate sheet.
So implementing a full day kindergarten program would require about $250,000 in startup costs for the first year and an override for the program of $1.0 million. What do you think about that? Is this something that the town and schools should pursue? As I said, there is no better dollar spent in education than one spent for early education.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Full Day Kindergarten for Dartmouth
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9 comments:
I'm having problems downloading. Do any of the reports include the savings from eliminating K bussing? You save a significant amount of money by eliminating 2 routes in the return of the am K and to school pm K routes.
The savings from the bus transportation for full day kindergarten is modest according to Mr. Cordeiro. That is because the bus contract has the town pay per bus per day, not by the trip. In any case, the numbers I have referenced are the foundation budget numbers for the school and transportation is a town charge.
According to Mr. Cordeiro, we will pay $1.7 million for student transportation in FY10. Even if the savings were 5% which I feel is high, the reduction would be $85,000.
There will be no bus savings since the town continues with half day K for part of the population. If we move to full day K for all, then there would be a small savings.
I think the pilot program is good, but we should not go to full day until it is mandated by the state. I say this because of the present economy. I don't think the state can afford it either. Right now, we cannot afford the extra teachers, classrooms, and cost of implementing full day.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it appears that the school department wants to spend additional momey, while the selectmen/fincom are trying tp bail out the seeking ship. What is wrong with this picture??
It's too bad that a full day K was not thought of years ago before the closing, and ultimate "crunching" of 5 schools worth of students into 3. Now, lets say we implement a system-wide full day K. Seems we don't have the classrooms to do so anymore at present, without an excessive number of students in one classroom, and then how beneficial is that? Now, if we have 60 or so students who will have a full day K (assuming full day of learning and not just 1/2 day of paid daycare), how to you put them on an even playing field so to speak with the rest of the kids who did not get the same benefit, because their name was not drawn in a lottery, and expect them to all be at the same level in first grade? Seems to me it should be all or none. To have some benefit and others lose out because of the "luck of the draw" seems trivial.
I attended the Dartmouth schools as a child, but chose to send my children to a school that offered full day K due to the large class size they would face in Quinn. Plus really, what do you get from a couple hours, when alot are spending more time on the bus and the playground combined than in school? But I do wish the school department luck with this. It's just a shame they kinda shot themselves in the foot by eliminating classrooms where we can't make this system wide as of yet from what I see. Logically, there just isn't the room. If class A in the morning has 25 students, and 25 students in the afternoon, does class A have 50 students with a system-wide full day K?
Could the strategy be to get the parents all fired up about some kids going to K and some not. Then ask for an override to get it for everyone. No, that's cynical, I'm sure that's not it.
I saw a study done by UMass Dartmouth, which was obviously geared towards answering the question "Would an override pass for a full day K", because interestingly enough, close to 70% of respondents did not have a child in the school system. Yet, we are to believe the study was to assess the overall quality of the school system, until about the fourth question that asks "Would you support a tax override for instituting a full day K program in Dartmouth." Also, asked if people would approve certain things, and one was the expansion of DeMello school. (We don't all really believe they need to widen Dartmouth St because the buses are having a difficult time turning into the lot do we? They've been turning into that lot just fine for years and I don't really see trafic build ups or high rates of accidents on Dartmouth St.) I'm willing to bet it has more to do with handling the increased bus traffic when they expand the school, which is obviously the goal rather than open the 2 that were closed, that's obviously never going to happen.
It's all been known to town officials well before to town members what was going to occur. Let's see, build a new high school, I'd be willing to bet a primary reason was because they knew well before town debate even began about Cushman and Gidley that they would never get tax payers to agree to more money to keep the schools open. So, we build a new high school, allowing for the Middle school to move to the old high school, now freeing up a large elementary (but we'll just call it redistricting.)
Don't get me wrong, I do love this town, was born and raised here and moved back to raise my kids here, but if my daughter's private school can run a full day pre-K, full day K, and full day grades 1-8, all on a tuition cost to parents of $400.00 per month, then why so much need for Dartmouth to run just 3 full day K's? At $75 per week, that's $300 per month at even just 60 kids, that's $18,000 per month! My advise, before deciding on an override, ask you town for a detailed expense report on where all this money will go. Is it ALL going to go to the full day K program?
And one more point. The town knows full well that asking for tax increases over a minimal amount will never pass in this town for additional school funds, just like to closing of Cushman and Gidley, they knew it before the ballots were even printed, and here's what I believe why. It's simple demographics. You have a town where many are elderly, on a fixed income, and have raised their children and sent them through school already. It's a town where people live, raise their family, and then live out the rest of their lives without such a big turn around on home ownership as other areas. (which is great, don't get me wrong!) But really, if you were 85 on a fixed income with no children in school, would you vote yes? Second, Dartmouth has a high degree of expensive homes, meaning a high degree of those less willing to vote for a tax increase that would be quite high for them. Third, you have alot of homes geographically determined to be in a flood zone due to our large coastline, who have been hit hard with flood insurance on homes with hefty price tags, will they vote yes? No. Really, you just have to look at the demographics of the town and know this will never pass, and the town knows it too. So when you're told we need to spend money widening a street that has been fine for YEARS (like Dartmouth St.), ask your self the real reason behind it that will become evident over time. Bet on DeMello being expanded, I am.
Good point about lack of votes. What I predict they will do is combine the issue of override for full day K with one or 2 other issues that all town's people would want, to get it to pass. Because the only one's who would vote for an override for full day kindergarten would be those who have children about to enter Kind. or are 4 and under. Wouldn't be enough people. Someone whose children are already in 5th let's say, wouldn't vote yes. Heck, I know someone who had 3 kids in Gidley and couldn't even be bothered to go and vote for keeping the school open!
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