BY TOBY HENRY Residents approved the town’s first public kindergarten and town budget of $4,218,251 during the final annual Town and School District meetings March 14 and 15. The voters’ decision to approve the SB2 official ballot voting system on March 11 means the traditional meetings held on Friday and Saturday were the last ...

BY JENN McDOWELLTwo Auburn Budget Committee members have changed their minds and are now recommending a warrant article that would fund state-mandated public kindergarten. They changed their votes upon getting new information from the state the day after their decision. The Joint Legislative Committee on Costing an Adequate Education released ...

BY JENN McDOWELLPublic kindergarten and a joint middle school may have a hard time becoming a reality now that the Auburn Budget Committee has come out against them. At the Auburn School Board’s hearing before the Auburn Budget Committee on Thursday, Jan. 31, the committee voted not to recommend those two articles. The Budget Committee ...

BY JENN McDOWELLWith a state-mandated kindergarten deadline looming, the Auburn School Board has drafted a preliminary warrant article for building and operating costs associated with opening public kindergarten facilities in time for the state Legislature’s September 2008 deadline. Kathleen Porter, vice chairman of the School Board and ...

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 NICHOLAS BROWNWhen Auburn Village School Principal Anita Johnson moved to New Hampshire from the Midwest in 1978, she was shocked to find Auburn had no public kindergarten. The possibility that a public program didn’t exist had never occurred to her. “It’s like if you’re buying a house. Do you ask if there’s a ...

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 ...