By ANNIE GOELLER, Daily Journal of Johnson County staff writer
Local schools would be forced to hire more teachers, find more money and come up with more classroom space if they are required by law to offer full-day kindergarten.
For example, Greenwood schools would need to spend another $450,000 on nine teachers and their benefits if the governor's full-day kindergarten plan is approved, superintendent David Edds said.
Currently, the school district offers half-day kindergarten to about 245 students. Edds estimates an extra 35 to 40 students would enroll in Greenwood schools rather than in private full-day kindergarten if the program was expanded.
Gov. Mitch Daniels proposed a plan to offer the kindergarten option to students eligible for free and reduced-price lunches during the next school year and have school districts offer the option to all students by the 2009-10 school year.
Across the county, superintendents are scouting their classroom space and figuring out how many teachers they will need to hire and how much it will cost.
Daniels said money is available to fund the program, and he will give details when the state's new revenue forecast comes out later this month.
But school officials said they were still concerned about how to pay for the new teachers and additional classroom space that the program will require.
"It's going to be devastating for most (school) districts," Edds said. "Every public school corporation in the state of Indiana is running on a shoestring. We just don't have the money stockpiled to do that."
Kindergarten classroom space is unique in that it usually needs special features such as an activity area and should be on the first floor of a school to get students out quickly in an emergency, Nineveh-Hensley-Jackson Schools Superintendent John Reed said.
Teachers also have recommended giving the room its own outdoor exit and bathrooms, he said.
One school superintendent's opposition to the plan is based in research, not logistics.
Franklin superintendent William Patterson said he opposes full-day kindergarten because he's never seen research that indicates it is beneficial for all children.
Needy students absolutely benefit, Patterson said, but there is no research that shows that students from middle-class or upper middle-class homes benefit from full-day kindergarten rather than half-day kindergarten.
In fact, he wonders why the state is taking this step since parents aren't required to send their children to kindergarten. Early childhood education is critical, he said.
Enrollment in full-day kindergarten offered now in three of five Franklin schools is based on skills assessment.
Franklin schools would need more building space sooner than anticipated because a full-day program would reduce the available kindergarten classroom space by 50 percent, Patterson said.
But if the state is willing to help fund the classes, Franklin schools could benefit, he said.
The school currently is paying for its all-day kindergarten program with Title I dollars, which is federal money given to schools based on their student-poverty level. If the state helps pay for the program, it will help free up money for other programs, Patterson said.
State financial help also is key at Edinburgh schools, which have offered full-day kindergarten for two years, Superintendent Becky Sager said.
The district won't need to make any changes because it already has four teachers. And classroom space for the more than 60 students who attend full-day kindergarten was made available when sixth-grade students started attending the middle school, she said.
Edinburgh already gets a $20,000 grant for full-day kindergarten. Sager hopes the governor's plan offers more financial help. The district spends an estimated $80,000 or more on the two teachers added to teach the classes, she said.
At Indian Creek schools, next year's deadline to offer full-day kindergarten to some students isn't a worry. But taking the program to all students in less than three years will be more difficult.
"It's going to take some creative budgeting, and we're going to have to do that," superintendent John Reed said.
Indian Creek already offers full-day kindergarten to about 30 students who were either defined as at-risk or who receive free or reduced-price lunch.
He estimated the district would need at least four more teachers, a cost of as much as $160,000, and would likely need to build new classrooms.
Officials from Center Grove and Clark-Pleasant schools were not available Tuesday.