Above: For years now, most Southborough Kindergartners have paid a price to attend Finn. That won’t be changing as quickly as some parents had hoped. (image from Finn website)
In December, the Southborough School Committee supported parents’ desires to make full day Kindergarten tuition free. But, given the costs to making a change, it’s something they planned to “transition in”.
What that transition will mean to parents in potential tuition decreases this coming fall and the next few is still unclear.
The only thing that is clear, only a handful of students will have “free” kindergarten this fall – the half day kids.
In December, School Committee member Paul Desmond told the public, “I don’t see any reason why Kindergarten should be treated any differently than 1st-8th grade.” It appeared to be the consensus of the school committee.
The committee’s support for tuition-free full day was based on all the curriculum requirements for Kindergartners, which are much more rigorous than years ago. (You can learn more about that from a past post on the subject.)
But Superintendent Johnson quickly emphasized the need to be fiscally responsible for taxpayers. No promises were made to parents or the committee about how the transition would be handled.
As of last year, the tuition rate was $3,250 per student. Superintendent Christine Johnson still isn’t projecting how much tuition will be lowered this year. This week, she explained to me:
Tuition has not yet been finalized as there are multiple factors influencing the setting of the tuition rate, i.e. Enrollments, number of sections and projections of costs in the next budget cycle.
This year, as has been the trend, it appears only a handful of Kindergartners will attend school for free. And at least one parent behind the movement for change is worried about the impact on children who can’t afford full day – and even those whose families can.
The Facebook page for Southborough for Full-Day Kindergarten posted:
since we still offer a half day program, we continue to deal with running both programs with dwindling enrollment in half day. Currently, there are around 4 students signed up for half day. We will have to move back to the model where half day students are integrated into full day classes. This results in curriculum for these classes to be taught during the time the half day students are present (8:50-11:30), which is not ideal.
The integrated classroom model is one the school adopted a few years ago. But, more recently, they went back to a dedicated half day classroom.
While the numbers are still in the air – if an integrated classroom is the plan, the population of half day students is likely to be very low this fall.*
The final budget presented for Annual Town Meeting voters notes that only 68.8% of Kindergarten’s operating costs are in the budget for taxpayer funding.
That leaves 32% to be funded by tuition. Last year, grant funding from the state was cut. Rather than spiking tuition, funds were made up through the operational budget. This year, the operational budget is absorbing an additional $110,000 in program costs as part of the transition initiative.
As for the transition to tuition-free, Johnson emailed:
There is no set timeframe. It will be in accordance with what is educationally sound based on priorities established through the budget process as well as what is fiscally responsible based on budgetary considerations in collaboration with the overall Towns budget projections.
This year’s school budget is a modest 1.9% increase over last year. (Though, some readers won’t consider it modest since that translates to $379,395. The total K-8 budget is $19,781,258.)
The Facebook post I quoted earlier also shared:
In order to best serve the needs of our Kindergarteners, we hope we can bring the comprehensive full-day Kindergarten program recommended by Principal Randell to Southborough and join the vast majority of school districts in MA that offer full day only. We are further along than we were when we started this discussion 2.5 years ago, but still more needs to be done.
*Editor’s Note: From my own experience, I noticed the impact of school communications on half-day/full-day enrollments. When a dedicated half day class was offered, many friends told me they selected full day to lock it in while they made their decision. Over the late spring and summer, they switched their registrations to half day. Enrollments in half day grew over the summer.
Two years later, that changed. In late spring, those of us who selected half day learned that our kids would be integrated into full day classrooms. It was a disturbing shock for everyone I spoke to.
Some parents, like me, chose to pony up for tuition instead. And others who had signed up for full day but still considering options, stayed with full day. That means over the summer, half day numbers went down.
It’s clear from parents pushing for free full day what their opposition to integrated half and full day classrooms is. But you might wonder, why would parents of half day kids care. I’ll only speak for myself – though I know I wasn’t alone.
For me, a big part of it was the social impact.
If you are the only (or one of two) students in the class who isn’t there for the full day – especially for recess, you are much more likely to be an outsider. (The school buses half-day students home right before recess instead of after.) For a young child entering school, recess is a big deal. It is part of the social development. And its where many friendships are bonded.
