Is all-day kindergarten worth $1M?

Duluth School Board members are expected to decide within the next month whether to follow in the footsteps of other area school districts by offering an all-day, every-day kindergarten program to families without charging them a dime.

“We’ve known for years that the evidence put forth on [all-day] every-day kindergarten shows that it has a dramatic impact on learning,” Duluth Superintendent Keith Dixon said. “This district has been talking about it for a long time. … We’re ready to figure out how we can do it.”

Right now the district offers a mix of options to its roughly 700 kindergarten students, including a free all-day program to families that meet certain financial criteria, a fee-based program for those that don’t, and a half-day program to everyone else.

Expanding kindergarten hours would put the district on an equal playing field with districts such as Two Harbors, Superior and the Edison charter school district, which have all-day kindergarten for all students. Hermantown, Esko, Proctor and Cloquet do not.

“We would predict we would get some students back that are [enrolled] elsewhere because we know other schools around us are doing this,” Dixon said. “You have to look at what your market is offering.”

Creating a free option for parents would not come cheaply, though. Dixon estimated the cost at about $1 million, a hefty price tag at a time when the district is considering how to cut $4.5 million to balance its budget.

“That’s not a small number,” Dixon said, “but we do have some funding sources to consider that we think might help us find a creative way to get there.”

Among those would be raising class size at the kindergarten or first-grade level or asking schools serving larger at-risk populations to give up some of their special funding, specifically about a fifth of the $2.5 million distributed districtwide, Dixon said. Schools use the money for a variety of purposes, including decreasing class size and paying for reading specialists to work with kids. The district also expects to save about $100,000 by eliminating mid-day transportation for kindergarten students.

“If every school would tighten up just a bit on discretionary dollars, we could get to that all-day, every day level,” he said.

Some School Board members said they don’t know if the district can afford the change in the current climate.

“I think we should seriously consider it, but I need to have a better understanding of how we are going to afford it while still delivering all the necessary services to our other grades,” member Tom Kasper said. “I mean, we still have to cut well over $4 million from the budget.”

Member Tim Grover agreed.

“I know there is huge demand for this out there, but I would want to know what we would not be able to do at what sites before I could support it,” he said.

Member Ann Wasson said the district should find a way to pay for it.

“I’ve been wanting this for a long time,” Wasson said. “Studies have shown that children in all-day kindergarten progress better, and that’s something we should be offering. I know it’s an investment for this district, but I think it’s worth it.”

Even Bonnie Jorgensen, director of the Edison school district — probably the Duluth district’s biggest kindergarten competitor — said she supported the move because of what it would bring to the community.

“A lot of kids are in preschool or day care anyway at that age. … I think it’s advantageous to have them in a structured program that will really help them get the sound reading, math and social skills they are going to need as they move on,” she said. “I think that all the kids in this city would benefit from that.”

Dixon said he hopes to put the program to a vote within the next month. If approved, it would start next fall.

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