School Board Approves Full-Day Kindergarten for 2012-13 School Year

Following community support in an online survey and Tuesday’s school board meeting, the Board of Education unanimously approved full-day Kindergarten for district schools.

Parents filled the San Marino school board meeting Tuesday and all 12 San Marino parents who spoke at the meeting supported a full-day Kindergarten program.

The results of an open presented Tuesday night showed 71 percent of the 612 people who took the survey were in favor of a full-day program.

The survey presentation also showed majority approval across the board in parents with children of differing ages.

“A lot [of kids] are going from full-day pre-K to half-day Kindergarten and they need more,” said parent Jenny Yessaian, who has a child in pre-K and another in Kindergarten whom she put at Kumon Learning Center two days a week to supplement the half-day program.

Other parents said they would send their children outside the district if a full-day Kindergarten program were not implemented.

Principal Liz Hollingsworth and Principal Colleen Shields, who were on the parent and teacher committee that studied the effects of a full-day Kindergarten, said the committee recommended a full-day program based on research showing social and academic benefits, including enabling students to meet California’s new, more rigorous Common Core standards that were imposed last year.

“Our standards in San Marino are high and they’ve gotten a little higher,” said Director of Instruction Gary McGuigan, who noted that Kindergarten standards have pretty much become first grade standards.

Hollingsworth also said that in her opinion offering only a full-day Kindergarten program without the option for a half-day program would help all students to have equal opportunity to continue to first grade.

Cost

The Kindergarten committee estimated the costs of the full-day Kindergarten program to be the following: