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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

BY DARRELL HALEN Pelham school officials, faced with a state mandate to provide public kindergarten next year, must submit a long-term implementation plan to the state Department of Education by Dec. 1. No decisions on how they are going to provide a kindergarten program were made when members met for a strategy session on Wednesday, ...

BY JENN McDOWELL An amendment to a bill going through the state Legislature that mandates public kindergarten for districts without it poses several options for communities looking to establish a program by the September 2009 deadline. Rep. Lynne Ober, one of the drafters of the amendment to the state’s original kindergarten ...

BY JENN McDOWELLAuburn residents will vote on two major school warrant articles this year, with the statemandated public kindergarten decision added to a planned joint middle school bond. Auburn is one of 11 school districts in the state without a publicly funded kindergarten program. Given a decision made at the state level in the spring, the ...

BY DARRELL HALENA 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 ...

BY MATT HERSHThough state legislators agree that kindergarten should be included an adequate education, bringing a kindergarten program to Salem is still a matter of funding and space. Late last month, the House voted 226-132 to approve a definition of adequate education that includes a mandatory halfday kindergarten. Though the definition still ...