A legislative committee has voted to recommend giving 11 school districts a one-year extension to start a public kindergarten program in their communities.

That’s welcome news to school officials in Salem, Windham and Pelham – three towns that don’t offer kindergarten and were each faced with a September 2008 deadline to start one.

“We’re all for kindergarten; that’s not the point,” said Roxanne Wilson, the assistant school superintendent for Windham and Pelham. “It’s where are we going to put kindergarten?”

Earlier this year, the New Hampshire Legislature included kindergarten in a definition of an adequate education and gave school districts until the fall of 2008 to offer a half-day program.

Recently, a joint House-Senate panel voted to recommend allowing a one-year extension.

Committee members also supported giving incentives to the school districts: full funding for up to three years to lease and set up portable classrooms; 75 percent in state construction aid; and providing adequacy aid.

The state has estimated that it would cost $305,770 to build and $17,000 to furnish and equip one kindergarten classroom in 2009 and has estimated the cost to prepare a site, and install and lease one portable unit with two portable classrooms for three years beginning in 2008 at $80,000.

A state education official who visited school districts determined that five kindergarten classrooms are required in Pelham and six are needed in Windham.

School Board members in Pelham and Windham decided against putting a kindergarten warrant article on their 2008 ballots.

Bruce Couture, the Pelham board’s chairman, said he and his colleagues believe that if the state mandates a program, it should fund it.

“We’re glad,” he said of the possible extension, which still must be approved by the full Legislature. “We’re not looking for a fight. We have other issues to deal with. We have space problems and we don’t want to compound it by having kindergarten shoved down our throats.”

In Salem, 10 to 14 classrooms would be needed for a kindergarten program, said Superintendent Michael Delahanty.

The number would depend on student enrollment and class size. Ideally, there would be no more than 15 students in a class, he said.

An 80 percent participation rate would mean that 280 students would need to be accommodated, he said.

A kindergarten program could entail other costs, such as bus transportation and additional staffing in addition to kindergarten teachers, Delahanty said.

The possible extension is welcome news, he said, because a program launched in 2008 would have been a slipshod one.

It would have been unfair to the students because it would have been rushed and unfair to the community because it wasn’t well planned, Delahanty said.

By this time next year, he said, he hopes state aid is better defined.

“When we do it, it needs to be done right,” Delahanty said.

Even if the one-year extension is approved, school districts would have to submit a plan of action to the state.

Wilson said that one of the issues that the Pelham and Windham school districts face is its growing preschool services.

The joint program, which serves about 90 children, is outgrowing its facilities. Allowing officials to put off kindergarten until 2009 allows the districts to plan for preschool and kindergarten at the same time, rather than take a piecemeal approach, Wilson said.