
Photo: Kate Samp for Strategies for Children
“Melrose Mayor Rob Dolan said it took snow-removal savings from a nearly snowless winter for the city to be able fund free, full-day kindergarten back in 2012,” Wicked Local Melrose reported earlier this month.
“And while most kids in the commonwealth do have access to full-day kindergarten — 93 percent, according to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education — for many it comes at a price, one that not everyone can pay. The result: some children across the commonwealth are reaping the benefits, and others are not.”
That’s a shame because as Amy O’Leary, director of our Early Education for All Campaign, told Wicked Local, “We know that full-day kindergarten makes a difference… It’s really about more time for quality instruction, more time for teacher and student interaction, learning the routines of the day. If you think about two-and-half hours versus six hours, there’s just more time for instruction and learning at your own pace.”
The good news is that fewer public schools have tuition-based, full-day kindergarten programs. Last school year, nine districts eliminated tuition. This year, of the 65 remaining districts that charge tuition, several are rethinking the policy. Last month, Needham released a study and planning commission report. And Canton and Milton recently voted to eliminate tuition starting in the fall.
Advocacy may be needed again this year to preserve full-day kindergarten grants in the state budget. The Senate Ways and Means budget provided only $2 million for full-day kindergarten grants, a cut of $16.59 million relative to current FY16 funding levels.
Need information to advocate for full-day K in your town? We’ve updated our resources, using publicly available data from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
• Our fact sheet looks at the benefits of full-day K and explains current policies in Massachusetts.
• The enrollment map shows the percentages of children across the state who attend full-day K.
• Our tuition charts show how much full-day K tuition rates vary.
• And we’ve also mapped tuition rates for full-day K for the 2015-2016 school year
While access to full-day kindergarten has become the norm in Massachusetts, there’s more work to do to keep improving kindergarten’s quality and to ensure that kindergarten is a fully aligned part of the birth-to-8 continuum.
So please keep encouraging city and state officials to invest in high-quality, full-day K, so that all children have access to this critical early learning opportunity.
Research from Strategies for Children was critical in getting free full day kindergarten passed in Canton. Thank you all for your work.