Education — Full-day to become the district's standard kindergarten offering; registration March 12

Thanks to a change in state policy, the Newberg School District will offer free full-day kindergarten beginning in the 2015-2016 school year.

The district will still offer half-day and bilingual kindergarten as options and will register students from 3:30 to 6 p.m. March 12 at all district elementary schools.

The school district now offers full-day kindergarten, but because kindergarten students are counted half weight in the state’s Average Daily Membership (ADM) calculations, which directly affect funding, parents pay a $3,000 tuition for the program.

The district has elected to make full-day it’s primary kindergarten format, because the state will now count full-day kindergarten students fully in ADM, enabling the district to pay for increased staffing.

Superintendent Kym LeBlanc-Esparza said she believes that could make a big difference for Newberg students and families.

“I think it levels the playing field and creates a more equitable choice process because for students of poverty, that may not have even been an option,” LeBlanc-Esparza said. “Now we can offer to all students and financial means don’t get in the way.”

The district has two classes of full-day, two of bilingual, with the remaining 11 running as half-day.

According to LeBlanc-Esparza, full-day kindergarten is necessary to address the problem of children, especially those from at-risk and poverty backgrounds, entering kindergarten unprepared for what is expected of them.

“If you look at our kindergarten readiness assessment as a state the last two years, very clearly we have lots of children who were not ready to enter kindergarten,” she said. “They don’t know letters, they don’t know sounds, they don’t know their numbers. So when they enter in that way, the background knowledge you have to give to kids just to get them ready for the foundations of learning how to read is huge time wise.”

That being the case, a half-day of instruction is simply not enough, which is why the trend across the nation is moving toward a return of full-day kindergarten.

The move is related to a body of research that shows that if a child can read on grade level by third grade, they’re significantly more likely to graduate from high school.

So finding ways to get more students to that benchmark has been a major focus for the district and the state.

Senate Bill 44 required the creation of a Full-Day Kindergarten committee to analyze data and make recommendations on the implementation of full-day kindergarten in Oregon. The committee recommended implementing mandatory full-day kindergarten, but the legislation that passed in 2011 and goes into effect this fall did not go that far.

The district is also working to address the problem in other ways, including a series of kin­dergarten readiness classes for parents of children now 3 or 4 years old.

“Ready!” classes will held from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Feb. 12, March 5 and April 23 at Mabel Rush Elementary School. Registration will open at 5 p.m., with a meal provided between 5:15 and 6 p.m. and childcare available beginning at 5:45 p.m.

To register, parents should call Zoraida Anaya at 503-554-5000.

“We’re also reaching out to early-learning providers in our community and trying to give them some professional development and access to curricula to work on with kids,” LeBlanc-Esparza said. “If kids walk in our door better prepared for kindergarten, obviously, it’s going to make them more successful.”

To register for kindergarten, children must be 5 years old by Sept. 1 and parents must bring proof of birth and an immunization record. Children who turn 5 between Sept. 2 and Oct. 15 will be considered for admission.

For more information, or assistance if attending registration March 12 is not possible, parents should contact their neighborhood school.

Written by: Seth Gordon