Salem Observer : Kindergarten

Kindergarten ready to roll - First year for Salem, Pelham and Windham begins Sept. 2

Salem Editor — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 18:41:00 GMT

BY DERRICK PERKINS

School district officials say they are ready to roll out the town’s first public kindergarten program for the inaugural 213 students when the school year begins Sept. 2.

“We’re good to go,” Edie Soley, assistant superintendent for the Salem School District, said earlier this week. “All nine teachers that have been hired are in getting their rooms set up.”

Classes are broken into two half-day sessions in Salem, Windham and Pelham. Hours are 9 to 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 to 3 p.m. in Salem, 8:45 to 11:15 a.m. and 12:30 to 3 p.m. in Windham, and 8:30 to 11 a.m. and noon to 2:30 p.m. in Pelham.

According to Soley, the curriculums have been drawn up, the furniture has arrived and the supplies have been purchased.

Though the district has run into a delay installing two portable classrooms at Fisk Elementary School after concerns arose over whether the soil at that site could support the concrete footings of the temporary buildings, Soley said that issue has since been cleared up.

The seven other portable classrooms – which are being installed in a staggered order at the district’s other elementary schools – will house the older students displaced by the kindergarten program. Each of the district’s nine half-day kindergarten classes will be held inside the main buildings, according to school officials.

Superintendent Michael Delahanty said making sure everything is in place for the new kindergarten program to get off to a smooth start has caused him about as much anxiety as he has ever felt in his career.

“I want everything to be exact and I know that (the kindergarten program) is going to set a standard for the opinion that parents hold for us, especially parents who are sending us their oldest child. It’s very important to me that we inspire the type of confidence that I know people have in our school system,” he said. “It’s a brand-new program and any one of a thousand things could go wrong.”

Though the concrete footings for the portables at Fisk School were poured on Tuesday, Delahanty said the district ran into another delay after workers discovered an abandoned gasoline storage tank – dating back to before the school was built on the property – buried under the location where the portables were to be installed. While it was just a matter of getting a permit to have the tank removed, Delahanty said it caused a moment of short-term anxiety for administrators.

“A lot of people have paid a lot of attention to detail,” he said. “The only thing that could go wrong is any issue out that is of our hands.”

Windham and Pelham programs begin
In neighboring Windham and Pelham, two other communities preparing to launch new kindergarten programs after legislators reworked the state’s definition of an adequate education in 2007, district officials have reported that they are ready and waiting to welcome kindergarten students to school on Sept. 2. According to Superintendent Frank Bass, 51 kindergarten students are enrolled in Pelham while 152 are enrolled in Windham.

“We are looking really good. Our portables are in ... We are in the process of getting all of our furniture and equipment in,” Bass said. “Everything is in a state of readiness. We’re very excited to offer kindergarten in both communities.”

Salem school officials say last-minute kindergarten sign-ups will have them scrambling

Salem Editor — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 02:52:00 GMT

BY DERRICK PERKINS

Officials fear a sudden surge in kindergarten enrollments in late summer could make the start of the school year a little more hectic than usual.

According to Superintendent Michael Delahanty, the district projected that around 300 children of eligible age for kindergarten would enroll in the program.

As of last week, the number of future students registered with the district remained below 200, creating concerns for officials moving forward with preparations for the start of the school year.

Salem is one of about a dozen communities in New Hampshire without a current public kindergarten program. Plans to go forward with the program began after legislators changed the state’s definition of an adequate education to include kindergarten – effectively making public kindergarten mandatory for all communities – in 2007.

“Right now, the number of teachers and classrooms is determined by enrollments,” Delahanty said. “Having these kids registered in late August isn’t going to help us.”

So far, the district has hired seven new kindergarten teachers and Delahanty said they are holding off on bringing any more educators on board until they have a better idea of the size of the kindergarten class. Officials had originally anticipated hiring around 10 teachers.

Delahanty said the district also had to make a final decision on how many portable classrooms to bring in by the first two weeks of May. With a 14-week construction time, a delay in determining the final amount of space needed would give educators and officials little time to set up before the start of the school year. As it is, Delahanty said the district expects to have the portables on site during the first or second week of August, already limiting the amount of time educators have to prepare.

Though officials originally proposed constructing 10 portables – funded by the state for the first three years as town officials search for more permanent facilities – that number is now down to eight or nine.

While current plans call for the portables to be used by older children, likely the fourth- and fifth-grade students, Delahanty remains concerned that a late surge in enrollment’s could have the district squeezed for room.

“I won’t have the space for them, and there will be more in one room than we would normally have,” he said. “We anticipated that some parents would be keeping their children in private facilities. I worry that in July or August, like what is true with our first-graders, we have an influx of enrollments.”

The concern has led officials to put up fliers in local schools and send press releases to local newspapers calling for parents of eligible students to register with the district as soon as possible.

“I hope that parents that are unaware of the process can get the information and get their children registered,” he said.

Salem kindergarten plans underway - students signing up

Salem Editor — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 19:41:00 GMT

BY DERRICK PERKINS

With funding for Salem’s public kindergarten program now restored to the school district’s operating budget, officials look forward to tying up the administrative details in time for the start of school in the fall.

About 170 kindergarten-aged students had been pre-registered for the program as of earlier this month, according to Superintendent Michael Delahanty, and he expects as many as 300 will be enrolled for kindergarten by the end of this coming summer.

“It is not a bad number, considering we started with 30. There are a number of people who were waiting for some kind of an outcome (on the budget issue) as well,” Delahanty said. “I believe that more people will come forward that the funding has been restored.”

The $1.6 million price tag for the implementation of the town’s first public kindergarten program – stripped from the district’s operating budget in a 5-4 vote by the Budget Committee last month – was overwhelming restored by voters during the Feb. 5 deliberative session.

Delahanty, who has campaigned for providing a public kindergarten to community as the right thing to do, described the response from residents as heartening and encouraging. Going forward, he said the district would wait to see the outcome of the March 10 Town Meeting before meeting with state officials to determine a timeline for when portable classrooms could be installed at each of the town’s neighborhood elementary schools.

The district is planning on hiring 10 kindergarten teachers, five support assistants to help children with special needs and a number of professional support staff – based on the number of students estimated to be enrolled in the program.

With the resources required to run to program already known, Delahanty said administrators could begin purchasing furniture, fixtures and equipment as soon as they begin placing annual orders for the rest of the district’s schools.

“It’s just a matter of hitting go and getting all this done. I’m most confident that we’ll have plenty of time to get up and running in the fall,” he said.

According to School Board Member Bernard Campbell, though the debate over whether or not the town will have a kindergarten program in place to meet the state’s deadline is settled, concerns over funding remain. He pointed to the state’s budget troubles as one cause for worry.

“Whether or not (state) education funding in general is going to be under some sort of cut, how that might impact the kindergarten funding or how that might impact adequate education funding in general, those would be major concerns,” he said.

Budget Committee member Stephen Campbell, who has been a critic of the school board’s decision to include kindergarten funding in the district’s operating budget rather than as a separate warrant article and called on the board to take the state to court over the kindergarten mandate, said the looming issue would be constructing a permanent home for the town’s kindergarten students.

State funding covers the housing costs of the kindergarten program for the first three years, after that it is up to the community to find a permanent location.

Stephen Campbell, who said the district has run into trouble in the past trying to get voters to go along with major construction or renovation projects, predicted the issue will resurface a year or two down the road.

“If they do it next year, I’m not sure that the economy is going to have improved very much between now and next year,” Campbell said. “It’ll be a sizable amount of money and if they continue to ask for 9 percent (budget) increases and then more on top of that they might have trouble. That’s an issue for the future.”

Money restored to budget for Salem kindergarten

Salem Editor — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 20:56:00 GMT

BY DERRICK PERKINS

Residents voted overwhelming to restore $1.6 million in funding to the Salem School District’s operating budget for a state-mandated kindergarten program at the district’s Feb. 5 deliberative session of School District Meeting.

The 492 to 76 vote in favor of the amendment to the district’s operating budget – the second secret ballot vote of the night – came without debate Thursday night. School Board member Bernard Campbell urged residents filling the seats inside the tightly packed high school auditorium to vote in favor of restoring the funding for the district’s kindergarten program.

“We believe it’s the law. The law says you will implement a kindergarten program,” Campbell told the just more than 500 residents in attendance. “It’s the right thing to do.”

Though the district – one of 11 statewide without a kindergarten program – has budgeted $1.6 million for the program, roughly $920,000 in funding for the district’s kindergarten will come from the state, including the costs of new portable classrooms for the first three years of the program.

School officials estimate the district will have roughly 300 kindergarten students at the start of the new school year and have proposed a half-day program, with two classes splitting up each day of the school week. Though the town is expected to have plans for a permanent kindergarten facility in place in three years, the state has offered to fund 75 percent of the costs of constructing a new building to house the program.

Salem’s school officials hoping to have a kindergarten program in place by the start of the 2009-10 school year ran into trouble last month after the Budget Committee stripped the funding from the district’s proposed $56 million operating budget in a 5-4 vote.

School officials had pinned their hopes of having the funding restored to the deliberative session rather than create a separate warrant article containing the necessary funding for the kindergarten program. Superintendent Michael Delahanty had warned that if the funds for kindergarten were not returned to the district’s proposed operating budget, the School Board would have had to face hard decisions on what other programs to cut in order to pay for the program.

Voters also restored $333,160 for four teaching positions to the district’s operating budget earlier in the night. The proposed operating budget for the district going before voters in March totals $56,608,925.

Salem schools could lose $5 million without kindergarten

Salem Editor — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 20:27:00 GMT

BY DERRICK PERKINS

Superintendent Michael Delahanty worries that the penalty for not starting a kindergarten program could come at the cost of financial aid, though state officials have not made a clear decision on what actions may be taken.

Any of the 11 districts in the state without a kindergarten program by the start of the new school year could potentially face a loss of school approval for failing to put a kindergarten program into place, according to New Hampshire Department of Education Commissioner Lyonel Tracy.

Although Tracy said the state board had not yet arrived at a decision as to whether that would translate into lost state funding for any district that openly defied the legislation mandating kindergarten, Delahanty believes that a partial loss of state adequacy aid – just over $5 million for Salem – is a possibility.

“I believe that the state would realize that the withholding (all) of the money would have devastating consequence in the district and therefore they would not do that. Will they withhold some percentage of the money just to send a message? That’s a more real possibility than the full amount,” Delahanty said. “In our case the law requires us to have kindergarten. It’s on the books. We are obligated to provide kindergarten.”

Another possibility facing the district is the potential for a lawsuit filed by the parents of kindergarten-aged children.Now that the state has included kindergarten in the definition of an adequate education, Delahanty said there is a concern that the district is legally obliged to provide the program and could face a dispute with parents seeking to recoup the costs of sending their children to a private facility.

Whether Salem would have a kindergarten program in place to meet the state’s deadline was called into question earlier this month after the Budget Committee voted 5-4 to remove the program’s funding from the district’s operating budget. The School Board is hoping that voters will restore the $1.6 million during a Feb. 5 deliberative session.

If the funding were not restored, Delahanty has warned that the board may have to make tough decisions as to what programs they would need to cut from the budget to start up the new class, not just to avoid sanctions from the state, but to do the right thing, he said.

“It’s unfortunate that it has come to this, and we’re now mandated by the state. I believe it’s simply the right thing to do,” Delahanty said. “I would prefer to have had the community support a public program many years ago.”

Restoring kindergarten money to be discussed in Salem

Salem Editor — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 00:11:00 GMT

BY DERRICK PERKINS

Voters will have the chance to either restore funding for the state-mandated kindergarten program to the budget or leave it by the wayside at the deliberative session of the School District meeting on Feb. 5.

The school district’s proposed operating budget – roughly $54.7 million after the Budget Committee removed the $1.6 million planned for next year’s kindergarten program and a further $400,000 in staff costs – tops a list of 10 warrant articles headed before voters in March.

If the money for the kindergarten is not restored, Superintendent Michael Delahanty has warned that the district may have to make cuts elsewhere to comply with state legislation changing the state’s definition of an adequate education to include kindergarten.

Without the kindergarten money, the school district’s operating budget still represents a proposed tax rate increase of about 6.6 percent or about a $128 increase for an average homeowner with a house worth $300,000.

Were kindergarten and the staff funding restored, the operating budget impact on the tax rate would be 9.3 percent or about $181 more per the average $300,000 homeowner.

Salary increases
The district is also proposing to raise $411,642 to fund a step increase in salaries for teachers, nurses and student services specialists for the 2009-10 fiscal year. The 3 percent pay raise represents a 27-cent rise in the tax rate and is a result of the collective bargaining agreement reached between the School Board and the Salem Education Association.

The district is asking for a further appropriation of $37,353 to fund a 2 percent bump in wages and benefits for secretaries, representing an 8-cent impact to the tax rate.

Custodians, aides and food service personnel are also looking at potential salary increases if voters approve each of the three separate warrant articles up for deliberation. The district is asking for $87,910 for a 3 percent wage increase with a tax rate impact of 2 cents for aides and $45,319 for a 2.75 percent raise – with a 10-cent impact to the tax rate – for custodians. The district is asking voters for a further $21,954 to fund a 2.75 percent salary increase for food service personnel.

Residents will also have the chance to decide whether a warrant article that will direct the School Board to cap any increase of their annual budget to any increase in revenue from the previous annual budget. The warrant article – put forward by petition – would also limit the School Board to increasing the annual budget up to the rate of inflation as determined by the National Consumer Price Index.

The deliberative session is set for Thursday, Feb. 5, at 7 p.m., at Salem High School.

District considers other ways to fund Salem kindergarten

Salem Editor — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 20:21:00 GMT

BY DERRICK PERKINS

With hopes of having funding restored for kindergarten pinned on a Feb. 5 deliberative session, school officials are examining what budget cuts could be made to ensure the program is in place come fall.

According to Superintendent Michael Delahanty, if the funding is not restored to the district’s operating budget, school officials would have to cut out other programs to make up for the $700,000 difference. While the state is offering $900,000 in aid to help start the $1.6 million program, the district will have to come up with the rest of the funding elsewhere.

Delahanty said he has been asked by the School Board to look into areas of the budget that can cut back without violating state requirements, including potentially ending bus service for high school students, not providing transportation of the high school band to away games, holding off on school repairs and imposing fees on student athletes.

According to Delahanty, eliminating busing for the town’s high school students could free up about $600,000 in the budget and taking the school band off away games could save a further $25,000.

“There is some talk among board members that it would be important to not fund something else and fund kindergarten instead,” Delahanty said. “There are programs that are affected if the board decided to have kindergarten even if the budget wasn’t restored.”

One of 11 communities affected statewide by the change in the state’s definition of an adequate education to include the kindergarten year, Salem is struggling to fund the program after a 5-4 vote by the Budget Committee last week removing the money set aside for kindergarten from the district’s operating budget.

According to Ed Murdough of the New Hampshire Department of Education, while state officials understand Salem’s situation, the district will still have to comply with the law. Unless the Legislature gives the district another extension – which is unlikely, according to Murdough – the law requires a kindergarten program in place by next year.

“We understand that everyone has got difficulties, particularly this year. School districts often don’t get the budget that they ask for, but that doesn’t relieve them of any of their requirements,” Murdough said. “They work with the resources they’re given and sometimes eliminate things that aren’t required.”

School Board member Bernard Campbell said the immediate challenge facing the district will be convincing voters before the Feb. 5 deliberative session that funding a kindergarten program is necessary and beneficial to the town. While the economic climate has made it tougher, Campbell is hopeful that the funding will be restored.

“How has the nation always sold the concept of a publicly funded education? The concept is that a better educated work force is more productive and it’s better for the community,” Campbell said. “It benefits the society in general.”

Salem school officials disappointed by decision to remove kindergarten from budget

Salem Editor — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 01:10:00 GMT

BY DERRICK PERKINS

A Budget Committee decision to remove kindergarten from the school district’s proposed budget for next year has made starting the program more difficult, but not impossible, say officials.

According to Superintendent Michael Delahanty, the School Board could create a separate warrant article to put in front of voters in March, ask voters to restore the funding for the program at a Feb. 5 deliberative session or make cuts elsewhere in the budget to cover the kindergarten program’s expenses to comply with the state’s mandate.

Salem is one of 12 communities that have been directed to put a kindergarten program into place after the state redefined the definition of an adequate education to include the kindergarten year. Despite a 5-4 vote on Jan. 8 by the Budget Committee to remove the program’s funding from the school budget, Delahanty said the district would begin compiling a list of eligible 4-year-olds in the community in preparation of formally enrolling next year’s kindergarten class.

“Right now I would say without the funds it would be quite a challenge to have kindergarten, though it’s not impossible,” Delahanty said. “Without the specific funds appropriated, we could still try to make kindergarten happen and that would be even without a separate warrant article and even without the restoration article.”

Set to discuss their remaining options on Tuesday, Jan. 13, Delahanty said he believed that the board would attempt to restore the program into the operating budget by way of next month’s deliberative session. Otherwise, were voters to turn down a separate warrant article in March and the district to implement kindergarten anyway, the board would have to make a “very hard decision” on what long-standing programs to eliminate, Delahanty said.

Michael Carney, a member of the Budget Committee, said his vote to remove kindergarten from the operating budget was made out of principle.

“I think the state has mandated it to us. If it’s a mandate, they should pay for it. If it’s not a mandate, then we should have the right to vote on it and the (public) should vote it up and down,” Carney said. “It’s just the principle, and maybe I’m sticking on them too hard. I believe that it’s a constitutional issue.”

Carney is not the first member of the Budget Committee to question the validity of the state’s mandate. Stephen Campbell, a 14-year committee member, has criticized the School Board for not following the lead of school officials in Hudson by taking the state to court over imposing what he said amounts to an unfunded mandate.

Despite Campbell’s vocal opposition of the mandate, Delahanty said he was surprised and dismayed by the Budget Committee’s decision.

“I understand (the) rationale – I heard it – but it’s no less disappointing,” he said.

Critics say Salem board should fight kindergarten plan

Salem Editor — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 01:22:00 GMT

BY DERRICK PERKINS

One member of the budget committee has criticized the Salem School Board for not following nearby Hudson in challenging the state’s public kindergarten mandate in court.

“It just annoys me that the School Board is ignoring the law,” said Stephen Campbell, a 14-year member of Salem’s Budget Committee. “The (state) constitution says no unfunded mandates and they’re just going along and not challenging the state. I’m happy that Hudson has decided to stand up and do what is right.”

Though Superintendent Michael Delahanty agreed that implementing the program following legislation that included kindergarten in the definition of an adequate education, he said he is grateful the School Board opted against taking the state to court. He called Hudson’s lawsuit a “no-win case.”

“State level educators are calling for statewide publicly supported kindergarten and to think that there are nine districts without public supported kindergarten is a sad commentary,” he said. “I understand that Hudson doesn’t want to incur this expense, but it’s going to come. Sooner or later, it’s going to have to be done.”

Though the state will be paying the housing costs associated with starting a public kindergarten for the first three years and giving school districts $1,200 per pupil, Delahanty said Salem would be paying for the operational costs, which include hiring 10 new new teachers, additional staff and purchasing books, supplies and other curriculum materials.

The state is also offering to fund 75 percent of the price tag of building a permanent kindergarten facility down the line, according to Delahanty.

Despite the cost – hiring new teachers alone will add about $280,000 to the budget – Delahanty described beginning a kindergarten program as a “social obligation.”

“I believe we have an obligation to provide kindergarten,” he said. “It is the fundamentally the right thing to do. It will make a difference for the kids academically, and I believe we have a social obligation to decide it.”

Campbell is faulting the School Board for not putting the kindergarten program in a separate warrant article, which would allow voters in March to decide whether the town would institute a public program. The program is being rolled into the district’s operational budget.

“For me its a matter of principle,” said Campbell. “It’s an unfunded mandate and we shouldn’t let the state get away with breaking the constitution. Whether you agree with kindergarten or not, the people should be allowed to vote on it,” he said.

“That’s the thing the school board members aren’t doing. Those two things are wrong.”

Voters still have a chance to challenge the school board’s position at a deliberative session for the district’s budget on Thursday, Feb. 5. If enough voters opt to take kindergarten out of the budget, then Salem may have to follow Hudson in taking the state to court, Campbell said. Otherwise, kindergarten-aged students will be heading to school come September of next year.

“What are they afraid of? Let the people vote,” Campbell said.

Salem's private kindergartens get ready to regroup

Salem Editor — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 01:18:00 GMT

BY DERRICK PERKINS

Private kindergartens are quietly adjusting for what many see as a significant future drop in their enrollment when state-mandated public kindergartens begin next autumn.

For some private kindergartens, that will mean gearing toward enrolling younger children, for others it may mean downsizing existing programs.

“We’re preparing to take younger children. We’ll take ones younger (than kindergarten), like toddlers,” said Karen Tate, owner of the Create and Discover Learning Center. “Our numbers will drop dramatically. We’ll probably lose about 80 children, which is usually what our kindergarten enrollment is.”

In previous years, kindergarten students at the Salem Christian School have been divided up into two classes with one teacher. This year the students have been put into one class together with an aide. The measure – which will force the school to take less than the usual enrollment of 30 children – comes as a way to keep the school from laying off teachers if the enrollment drops dramatically, according to Tony Long, school principal.

“We’ve been anticipating it for the last two or three years here. We’re fairly well prepared for it,” Long said. “Next year we won’t have to lay off a teacher if enrollment is much lower than it is now. If it doesn’t affect us next year we can reverse that.”

While the Salem Christian School has a strong, 30-year-long relationship with the neighborhood and the community, Long expects kindergarten enrollment to be much lower next year. On average, between a half and three-quarters of all kindergarten students end up transferring to a different school for first grade – a number that Long also estimates will rise in the future.

Despite the probable impact public kindergarten will have on the enrollment numbers of his own school, Long was positive about the 2007 legislation making kindergarten part of the state’s definition of an adequate education.

“I think its a good thing that New Hampshire is finally getting public school kindergarten. It is the only state in the union that has this situation left,” he said. “Of course, because we emphasize Christian values, we would like to have as many students as we could to reflect our philosophy or core values.”

For Tate, the potential for the adverse effects of the legislation will be offset by the benefits to parents and children across the state.

“I think this is a step forward. Every child has the opportunity to attend kindergarten,” she said. “It will impact us negatively, but we need to address that and realize that its best for all the children to get that opportunity.”

Tate said her program would adjust the hours of service depending on whether Salem opted for a full-time or part-time public kindergarten. If Salem moves for a half-day kindergarten, she may be able to tap into the population of parents who work full-time.

At the Littleville Learning Center owner, director and kindergarten teacher Laura Devine said she expects to lose most, if not all, of her 20 or so kindergarten students when the school district begins the public program next year.

“Definitely, it will impact my program,” she said. “I’m very sad. I was hoping they would do vouchers or something for the kindergartens in the area.”

While Salem is leaning toward installing state-funded portable classrooms at each of the six elementary schools to free up space to house the new kindergarten classes, other state funded options included contracting out to private kindergartens in the area for the first three years of the transition.

Devine said that she had begun programs for younger children, like toddlers and infants, but that since her current facility is not equipped for children of that age, she would likely have to move in the future.

She also pointed toward the impact the new public kindergartens – slated to open in the fall of 2009 – will have on the tax rate in Salem. It is a concern that has kept Salem from offering kindergarten classes before and it is one that may have an effect on whether or not the town does adopt the program by the state’s deadline of September 2009, according to Superintendent Michael Delahanty.

“As a Salem resident I’m more concerned about my taxes going up as well,” she said. “It’s not going to be free, and everybody’s taxes are going up.”

Salem may use portables for kindergarten

Salem Editor — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 01:14:00 GMT

BY DERRICK PERKINS

Under the gun to put in place a public kindergarten by September of next year, School Board members are leaning toward accepting the state’s offer of leasing portable classrooms.

“In order to have something in place by next fall, it appears right now that the board is going to pursue an option to take advantage of the state’s option to pay the cost of leasing temporary classrooms,” said Superintendent Michael Delahunty. “We have a group of people looking at a long-term solution for kindergarten, whether that is renovations and additions to existing schools or some other options. The notion is to use the temporary classrooms for the length of time necessary and within a few years have some more permanent solution.”

The School District’s director of maintenance has surveyed each of the town’s six elementary schools to pinpoint locations for the temporary classrooms, Delahunty said. Over the course of the next few months, officials will begin making plans to ensure the classrooms will be hooked up to the proper utilities.

Leasing portable classrooms to make space available in Salem’s six elementary schools for the influx of new students is just one of several state funded options available to Salem and the other 12 communities – including nearby Windham and Pelham – without public kindergartens state-wide.

The state has also offered to paying the construction costs of a new state-approved school design and 75 percent of the price tag for a custom-designed school. Communities also have the option of contracting with private kindergartens for up to three years as they arrange for their own publicly funded program.

Funding from the state will also cover the first-year operating costs of a new kindergarten program.

In return, the towns not planning on opening a kindergarten by this September – the date set in the original state legislation before the one year extension was granted last month – must have a plan to do so into the state Board of Education by Dec. 1 of this year.

Public support for the new state-mandated kindergarten is mixed, Delahunty said, but he remains optimistic that Salem will have a kindergarten by September of 2009.

“Parents of children coming to 5 years of age are very supportive. The people who tend to be unsupportive are those who have already had their children go through the system and feel that they don’t have an obligation to provide a kindergarten now that the community did not provide then,” he said. “I believe the community is ready to support a public kindergarten. I think having some temporary classrooms paid for by the state and then operating costs paid by the state for the first several years will help minimize the costs and make the community ready.”

Peter Morgan, a member of the School Board, has found public support for a kindergarten as long as the state lends a helping financial hand. The prohibitive cost of beginning a kindergarten program has kept the town’s taxpayers from moving in that direction in the past.

“There are some very motivated people who would like to see kindergarten, but since property tax funds everything, implementing a kindergarten (is) an expensive proposition,” Morgan said. “No one denies that kindergarten is a good thing. Everyone believes kindergarten is a good thing.”

Legislation amending the state’s definition of an adequate public education to include the kindergarten level of schooling came in 2007. For 20 years, New Hampshire had been the only state in the country not to do so, according to Helen Schotanus, curriculum supervisor at the state Board of Education.

“Everywhere else it’s obvious that kids who attend kindergarten do better than kids who don’t. Children who attend public kindergarten do better than kids in private kindergartens,” said Schotanus, who has been an advocate of mandatory publicly funded kindergartens on the state board. “(It is) to do better by our young children. A good kindergarten is a foundation. It is so obvious that kids do better when they have a good kindergarten to go into.”

While the legislation does not specify a consequence for failing to implement a publicly funded kindergarten, Schotanus said the towns that chose not to do so would have to answer to the board.

“At some point, the community will decide whether it wants publicly funded kindergarten and if people understand the value of formal and public education ... then they’ll agree it’s time the community provided that,” Delahunty said. “Having a program for 5-year-olds is beneficial to the community as a whole.”

N.H. gives towns another year to start kindergarten

Salem Editor — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 18:37:00 GMT

BY JENN McDOWELL

School officials for Salem, Pelham and Windham schools are breathing a sigh of relief now that the state has agreed to extend the deadline for instituting public kindergarten.

In its definition of an adequate education, the state Legislature included public kindergarten as a requirement.

Since then, 12 communities throughout the state currently without kindergarten have been scrambling to find funding, space and project enrollment and costs to establish kindergarten programs by September 2008.

That deadline has now been extended to 2009, a timeline that seems much more attainable, said Salem Superintendent Michael Delahunty.

The state has also included several funding options in their newest plan, something the 12 towns had been asking for, many of them calling the original kindergarten bill an unfunded mandate.

“I think the Legislature just understood the impracticality of expecting school districts without kindergarten to have something in place by the fall of 2008,” Delahunty said.

He added that the final kindergarten legislation – including acceptable funding options – was not complete until most of the towns had completed their budget processes.

“It will give us the chance to prepare a budget that includes the costs associated with implementing public kindergarten,” Delahunty said, including budgeting for supplies and other operating costs.

While the state will not help towns purchase land for kindergarten facilities, they have offered other funding options, including paying for portable classrooms for four years, paying 75 percent of the building costs for a custom school and footing the bill for all of the building costs for a state-approved school design. The state has also agreed to pay operating costs for kindergarten for the first year.

The state has also offered towns the option of being able to contract with private kindergartens for up to three years while they get their own public programs going.

Towns who have not begun a kindergarten for September 2008 have to submit a plan to the state by December outlining their plans to put the program in place.

“I think we’re very appreciative of the House-Senate bill’s change in its format and in its language because it gives us a little more time and a little more leeway,” said Frank Bass, superintendent of Pelham and Windham schools.

Bass said the Pelham and Windham school boards have not made any hard decisions on which avenues to take in terms of funding and facilities, but said those discussions will happen soon.

Delahunty said the Salem School Board is leaning toward installing portable classrooms on existing school grounds, similar to what is now being used at the high school, only the kindergarten portables would be a little smaller.

Bass and Delahunty were both adamantly against the state forcing public kindergarten on towns without providing the funding for it and on such short notice.

The nine other towns currently without public kindergarten are Hudson, Auburn, Mason, Lyndeborough, Mascenic Regional, Milford, Derry, Litchfield and Chester.

‘Impractical solution’ to Salem's kindergarten mandate

Salem Editor — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 19:11:00 GMT

BY JENN McDOWELL

Salem school officials said a proposed amendment to the public kindergarten mandate allowing districts to temporarily contract with private establishments will neither hasten nor simplify the road to establishing kindergarten programs.

Superintendent Michael Delahanty said the proposal, which included reimbursing per-student costs to private kindergarten establishments and leveling out curriculum among them, is unrealistic.

“It’s an impractical solution,” Delahanty said, adding the school administrative unit, SAU 28, would not be ready to tackle standardizing the curriculum among even a few of the private kindergartens.

The Salem School Board has had a committee in place to explore how to properly execute public kindergarten since before the legislation mandating it came forward in July 2007. Delahanty said there are 16 private kindergartens in town that Salem parents send their children to, but Salem children also attend kindergarten in 16 other communities and in seven Massachusetts towns.

After the state Legislature passed a bill declaring public kindergarten as part of an adequate education, several districts in the state without such a program, including Salem, were charged with establishing kindergarten by 2009.

Some of the districts have voiced discontent with the bill, calling it an unfunded mandate and saying instituting public kindergarten is a community-level issue, not a state decision, and one voters should make at the polls.

The proposed amendment, drafted by state Representatives Lynne Ober and Peter Leishman, includes several options aimed at making the transition to public kindergarten less bumpy, said Ober.

“We wanted to spark some creative thinking,” said Ober, adding the list of options includes refunding 100 percent in state construction aid for districts; keeping the construction reimbursement at 75 percent while pushing the deadline back a few years; and allowing districts to contract with private kindergartens that employ certified teachers.

The state would cover $1,200 per kindergarten student, the same amount public school districts who set their public kindergarten up by the 2009 deadline would get, for the state’s accepted two and a half total hours of class time per day.

Delahanty said privatizing kindergarten, even temporarily, would prevent the sort of input that comes from voters through the polls.

“When you send your dollars to a private source, now you lose all control and there’s not that same oversight,” Delahanty said.

It would also make creating a public kindergarten program difficult as people see the private facilities they currently send their kids to, often near their work place, as a sufficient alternative, Delahanty said.

“We can’t gain support for our kindergarten if a program that people think is sufficiently addressing the need is in place,” he said. “I want to do it in a way that’s going to be accepted by the community.”

Using the common practice among neighboring towns of estimating the amount of kindergarten students in the school district by using 80 percent of the year’s first-grade enrollment, currently sitting at about 330 in Salem, the projected amount of kindergartners in Salem is between 260 and 270 children, Delahanty said.

School Board Chairman Robert Bryant said the board is working out a plan for setting up kindergarten, but added he is also not pleased with the way the state has handled it, and further does not think privatizing kindergarten would help communities. Bryant also voiced reservations about how the school district would be able to handle supervising the private kindergartens, adding there is not enough staff and that curriculum would suffer.

“Under what curriculum will they all be teaching?” Bryant asked of the different teachers in separate private establishments.

It would also be difficult, particularly for Salem, to decide which private kindergartens would get the contracts, taking into account location, size and a host of other factors.

“I think the state got a little single-minded and just walked in a straight line and said we’re going to kindergarten, follow us there or else you’re going to have problems with us in 2009,” Bryant said.

As kindergarten deadline looms, Salem officials wait on state

Salem Editor — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 23:21:00 GMT

BY JENN McDOWELL

As the September 2009 deadline for instituting public kindergarten in 11 school districts throughout the state approaches, school officials grapple meeting that deadline, space issues, state funding and meeting the deadline.

Some said they have been waiting for possible spring decisions at the state level to reduce the financial impact on school districts.

As it stands, communities beginning kindergarten programs would get 75 percent state aid for building costs or would get all the money to install portable classrooms.

The legislation further promises a 75 percent reimbursement of kindergarten’s first-year operating costs as an incentive to those towns who get kindergarten up and running by September 2008, a year ahead of the state’s set deadline.

Some districts are holding out in hopes the state would grant 100 percent of those costs, arguing the kindergarten legislation is a mandate with no explicit consequence and that is not fully funded.

“You can’t get away from the notion you will be bearing the cost of kindergarten in perpetuity once you get going with it,” said Pelham and Windham Superintendent Frank Bass.

Salem Superintendent Michael Delahunty said a kindergarten committee in the school district has been working on putting public kindergarten in place for the past year and a half or so, before state legislation came forward in July 2007 that defined an adequate education as including public kindergarten.

“I believe that public kindergarten is an essential and necessary part of our obligation to our youth to begin educating them as soon as possible,” Delahunty said, but added the state should remain out of the decision on how to establish such a program.

“I think it’s necessary for a community to determine on its own the manner about which that’s done,” Delahunty said, adding most people see the legislation as an unfunded mandate that contradicts the state’s constitution.

“It sets the community and the state against each other, which is unfortunate,” he said.

While the state has agreed to pay for portable classrooms in the districts, Delahunty said, it has not been realistic about the space constraints associated with their placement on the land at each of Salem’s six elementary schools.

He added there would need to be at least six portables on each plot to accommodate between 280 and 290 students while maintaining the district’s accepted student-teacher ratio for kindergarten of 15 students per teacher.

That’s based on an 80 percent estimate for how many kindergarten-aged students in the district would go to public kindergarten, a figure used by surrounding communities in determining capacity and costs.

Salem’s kindergarten operating costs are expected to run at about $1 million per year, Delahunty said.

Bass said the Pelham and Windham school districts are “nowhere” with public kindergarten at this point because they were waiting to see what the state decides about fully funding kindergarten and on what Pelham voters decided at the polls on March 11 on three articles totalling $50 million in bonds related to building a new high school.

The plans were to build a new Pelham high school, renovate the current one to accommodate middle school students and convert the current Pelham Memorial to an upper elementary school, freeing up Pelham Elementary to include kindergarten through fourth grade.

“I think from our position, we want to create as positive an atmosphere as we can. We want to create as much possibility for change in the law,” Bass said, such as phasing in kindergarten.

Using the same 80 percent turnout estimate, Bass said, Pelham would need to accommodate between 210 and 220 kindergartners. Windham would get about 215 to 225 students.

What operation would cost

The yearly operating costs to each school district are roughly estimated to be between $500,000 and $600,000, he added, which includes salaries and benefits for a projected six teachers in each district, Bass said.

Regardless of what the voters say about it, the affected school districts need to be planning for the onset of public kindergarten, said Pelham School Board Chairman Bruce Couture.

Couture said the Pelham School Board decided not to put kindergarten to voters this year because they decided “not to worry about it until the state comes back with 100 percent funding.”

“If we did end up with 100 (percent), I would certainly feel bad for the communities that went ahead and got the 75 (percent),” Couture said.

With the budget process already completed for the year, and Pelham voters accepting a default budget, Couture said he couldn’t see Pelham instituting public kindergarten before the 2009-10 school year.

Delahunty said Salem may not even be able to implement the program that early. “I can’t say that we’re going to have kindergarten in 2009,” he said.

School districts may get reprieve on kindergarten deadline

Salem Editor — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 19:11:00 GMT

BY DARRELL HALEN

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.