Full-time kindergarten doesn’t yet pencil out

Five days a week, hundreds of Bend parents pick up their kindergarteners before lunch, including Meredith Planegger.

“I have twins, and one of them is full-day and one of them is half-day,” Planegger said Friday.

In Oregon schools, half-day kindergarten is free, while a full day of class costs about $3,600 a year per student, unless that student qualifies for federal funding that allows them a slot in a free, full-day class.

Bend-La Pine Schools officials said about 65 percent of their kindergartners do go to school for the full day, but a majority of them are low-income and qualify for federally-funded tuition.

Planegger said she cannot afford tuition for both children, so she chose to put her special-needs twin in the half-day class at Miller Elementary. She said the decision has worked out well for the family, but she thinks her special-needs daughter would also do well with full-time kindergarten.

“I think she would benefit from full day, just anything extra to get learning in,” Planegger said.

Next school year, that’s all supposed to change. In 2011, Oregon legislators passed a bill to both fund and require schools to offer full-time, free kindergarten to everyone. The deadline is this fall.

Although the district has sent out emails to parents saying, “Beginning with the 2015-2016 school year, Bend-La Pine Schools will be offering free full-day kindergarten to all students,” district officials told NewsChannel 21 that it’s not yet fully approved. The problem is money.

“State funding is the elephant in the room,” said Assistant Superintendent for Elementary Programs Lora Nordquist. “When you add the thousands of kids who would be added in full-day instead of half-day, there’s belief if the pot doesn’t get bigger, funding full-day kindergarten could end up cutting services for other students.”

However, both Nordquist and state Sen. Tim Knopp, R-Bend, said they’re feeling optimistic the funding will come through.

Knopp said legislators haven’t worked out the budget yet, and if the law ends up not getting funded, it won’t be enforced.

“It should be an individual decision for school districts and the school boards as to whether they opt out if the funding is not there,” Knopp said.

Nordquist said in the meantime, the district is preparing as much as it can for the possibility of the added school hours. She said a decision will be made once the state approves the schools budget.

“We’re really excited about full-day kindergarten, but we don’t want it to come at the cost of cutting services, raising class sizes for other grades and things like that,” Nordquist said.

Full-day kindergarten teacher Stacey Purtzer said more time for learning has proven critical.

“To have that solid foundation for reading readiness, having them here all day really benefits them,” Purtzer said.

Before taking a job at Lava Ridge, Purtzer said she taught half-day kindergarten at other schools. She said she would never be able to squeeze her full-day lesson plan into the 2 1/2-hour half-day.

“We try to get all the kids where they need to be, but 2 1/2 hours, it’s a really, really difficult job,” Purtzer said.

And parents agree it’s also difficult to come up with tuition to give their children that extra time in class.

“It would be very nice if it was paid for, because a lot of parents can’t do that, either,” Planegger said.

Another parent NewsChannel 21 spoke with said she is concerned that half-day kindergarten would be eliminated if the district decides to switch to free, full-day classes.

Bend-La Pine Schools is exploring those very questions right now.

Nordquist said a survey has been sent out to parents of preschool students to find out what they prefer.

“We might have a few programs across the district that are half-day, if there’s enough interest,” Nordquist said.

For information on that survey, you can contact Bend-La Pine Schools: 541-355-1000.