Only poorest schools receive state funding for full-day kindergarten
Here’s a head scratcher.
Helen Chandler pays $375 a month in tuition for her son to attend kindergarten at an ordinary public school, Allen Elementary School in the northwest valley. She drives 20 minutes one way just to get him there. The bus isn’t an option because the family lives outside the school’s zone.
“But it’s totally worth it,” the mother said. Otherwise, her son would be in kindergarten for just half a day and risk not learning the fundamentals of math, reading and writing. “I don’t know how to fit all that into two-and-a-half hours a day.”
But that is exactly what the state asks the majority of Nevada elementary schools to do, though studies show higher test scores and achievement for students who had full-day kindergarten.
Only the poorest schools — 89 in the Clark County School District — receive state funding for full-day kindergarten. The district School Board requested Thursday that the state provide Clark County’s $18.3 million portion of this funding for next year.
That will continue to leave the county’s 128 other elementary schools with half-day kindergarten programs. For years, Nevada has been among the minority of states in the nation that don’t provide universal funding for full-day kindergarten. It funds just those schools where a majority of students live in poverty.
Allen Elementary School, where 17 percent of students are low income, has found other means to support a full-day kindergarten program. Parents must pay tuition if they want full-day kindergarten at the school, near Ann Road and El Capitan Way.
It has been doing this for four years, Principal Gary Prince said. And it’s not the only one. Sixty-eight district schools do the same at parents’ request.
Demand was high at Allen until the economy worsened in recent years, Prince said. He now accepts students from outside the school’s zone, as do the other elementary schools offering tuition-funded kindergarten.
“I think it’s a shame that full-day isn’t available to everyone,” he said, noting how half-day teachers are only able to introduce lessons and move on. Physical education, art and music disappear entirely in half-day programs.
Allen has two full-day kindergarten classes. Many of the students in those classes have skills that are above grade level, Prince said. Tuition dollars provide more resources for students than state funding does for poor schools, he said. State funding only covers the cost of one teacher per class.
Allen has a teacher and an aide in each class. Also, Allen’s full-day kindergarten class enrollments are capped. Each class needs 23 students minimum to operate, but he limits class sizes to 25. A few more students may be allowed through a lottery if demand is high.
The difference is undeniable, Beth Wishengrad said. She has paid for both her children to go through Allen’s full-day kindergarten, fearing they would graduate from half-day kindergarten behind. Now, they’re ahead.
“But I know a lot of parents who can’t afford” $3,100 a year and don’t send their kids to full-day programs, she said.
Contact Trevon Milliard at tmilliard@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0279.
