I’ve been innundated with Grandfatherly duties. As I told a fellow whose been waiting for me to do some serious writing its hard to write with grandchildren underfoot. Lately that has meant blog posts too short as they are. I’ve got a bunch stacked up like planes at O’Hare.
Here’s one tidbit though I found stuck on a sticky note in a notebook I closed two weeks ago. It seems that Holy Rosary has a huge waiting list of students whose families wish to enroll them. I guess they view the growing class sizes and closing programs in the public schools as a deterrent to keeping their kids in them.
I can not improve on the letter to today’s Trib pointing out that all-day kindergarten will do little to win these families back and is far more likely to drive them farther away.
Rather than simply post a link to it I’ll place it here in its entirety. I’ll just wait to see if the Trib has its lawyers call to tell me I’ve infringed on their copyright. If they do I’ll have to ask them if the Trib intends to challenge me for reprinting my own letter-to-the-editor and columns that I’ve submitted to them over the years.
Our taxpayer money should not be funding free, full-day kindergarten (“Duluth School Board to vote [Tuesday] on all-day kindergarten,” March 10).
Studies quoted by Superintendent Keith Dixon and School Board member Ann Wasson in the Feb. 12 News Tribune (“Is all-day kindergarten worth $1M?”) indicated children who attend full-day kindergarten progress better and their learning is “dramatically impacted.” What the studies didn’t say was how many grade levels it takes for kindergarteners attending half days to catch up.
How many half-day kindergartners would this affect? There are half-day kindergartners who finish the year reading chapter books; there also are full-day kindergartners who can barely read at year’s end.
Certainly there is a place for need-based, full-day kindergarten. Funding full-day kindergarten for everyone will need to come from somewhere. Bigger class sizes? Taking money from at-risk students? Those are educational steps backwards. Tightening up on discretionary dollars? Great idea for tackling the $4 million the Duluth district already is over budget. For families paying, the cost for kindergarten is less than most day care or preschool centers.
What about those of us who find value in keeping our 5-year-olds home half the day? Furthermore, some 5-year-olds are not emotionally or physically ready to handle full days of school.
Let’s leave it up to the parents to decide whether their 5-year-old should be in school all day. Let taxpayer money fund other pressing educational issues while parents of kindergartners continue to finance their personal choices (with the exception of those who are need-based). And let’s really analyze the studies that say full-day kindergartners are further ahead academically.
School Board members must be contacted before they vote Tuesday. Contact information is at duluth.k12.mn.us.
Roxanne Moline
Duluth
The writer is the mother of a first-grader and preschooler.
Unlike another the latest nasty letter from Doug McGuire in today’s paper which seeks to discredit Tom Boman and perhaps get him in dutch with Katherine Martin this parent sees the unhappy consequences of The Red Plan.
