The agenda for tomorrow's board meeting includes this item:
"A. Action on Implementation of Full-Day Kindergarten Program for the 2011-2012 School Year.
The Board will be asked to approve the implementation of full-day
kindergarten program for the 2011-2012 school year contingent upon the
availability of adequate state and local funding."
Please come and express your opinion. This might be the last opportunity to do so.
The meeting will be at Van Antwerp middle school, beginning at 7pm.
See you tomorrow,
Steve
Well, the Board meeting was very painful, but I guess not unexpected based on the way the Agenda item was stated. It was good to see a few more people speaking out on this issue from both sides of the aisle. My biggest complaints still remain; that the bases for the School Board's adoption of full-day Kindergarten seems to be primarily from results of data researched and presented by a Committee appointed for this purpose. We, unfortunately, did not have the opportunity to see this research in its entirety, nor to know who the Committee members were, especially the parents on the Committee. I was still hopeful that the Board would present current data and plans for the program, in an effort to persuade us that this is a program that is better for our children than what we are currently offering at home. But to no avail. The data presented was dated back approximately 10 - 15 years ago and we know things have certainly changed since then, including the state of the economy and the successes and failures of similar programs across the nation. The most disturbing part of the meeting for me was the final "turning of the knife" when Mrs. Sosnow declared that "if stay at home parents want more time with our children, we should keep our children back a year, or pay for a half day program so that we can spend the time that we need with them." I feel that not only was this statement very condescending, but was not sympathetic to those of us who have sacrificed earning an income to educate our children at home and we cannot, therefore, pay for a half-day Kindergarten program, if in fact they actually exist. This would only be defeating our purpose of having our children home with us, so it really makes no sense anyway.
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