Mission POSSIBLE: Full Day Kindergarten in Bridgewater-Raritan

It's been nine months since I first set out with a group of parents to bring awareness to our Board of Education about the importance of instituting Full Day Kindergarten here in Bridgewater-Raritan.

Over the past nine months, we've attended BOE meetings, met with parent groups, met with BOE members, started a Facebook group (with now over 350 members) and created a Petition (with now over 560 signatures), all with the hopes of gaining traction to this cause and eventually leading to action. Finally, after all this time, in the wee morning hours of Tuesday, April 8th, we got our BOE to take the first important step and action.

They have revised and updated their District Goals to include a new fifth goal which states that they are tasked with the responsibility to look at optimizing P-8 (preschool-8th grade), which includes FDK. The actual updated goal reads "The Board will study K-8 configuration to determine the optimal structure and program implementation that meets the needs of the students while providing for full day kindergarten within two to three years." It's a small step, but an important one.

Kindergartener's here in BR are already being phased into the rigors of the new Common Core. How are our students and teachers going to address fitting a full days worth of curriculum into a 2.5 hour program? We're hoping the restructuring will help alleviate this stress and worry and create a better curriculum, and schedule that is age and developmentally approriate but at the same time, fun and creative. The rigors of the Common Core have forced instruction in FDK districts to increase. As of now, districts with FDK programs schedule ELA (Reading and Language Arts) for 90 min. (or more) and Math for at least 60 min.

In our current half day program, students receive less than half of that time in those important foundational areas of instruction. This is simply not an issue of making sure we get "free daycare," it's an issue of ensuring our children are getting an equitable education that prepares them for future grade levels. We have worked closely with the Bridgewater-Raritan Educaiton Association as well and The BREA leadership and its members understand the value of education and as such have been very supportive of the full day kindergarten initiative.

As of now, there is a great difference in incoming first graders as you are seeing a wide range of backgrounds of education: private full day K, half day K with private enrichment, just half day K etc. There is such a wide variety of educational preparedness for our incoming first graders, that having a FDK program that all could attend would make the transition into first grade a smoother one. With a FDK program in effect, we should also see a rise in our NJASK3 scores. When studied in comparison to historically FDK school districts in our county, our scores were lower. Maybe it's because our students are still playing "catch up"? We don't know, but what we do know, is that there is truly an educational benefit to having a FDK program.

The BREA also understands that in order to be successful, especially in this era of testing, students need to have a solid foundation of learning from as early an age as possible.

As many who have followed the issue know, the recent Demographer's Report (March 25th BOE meeting) showed a predicted decline in enrollment. Our schools are already experiencing this and will continue to over the next decade or more. What this means is that our district is shrinking. By the 2018-19 school year, total district enrollment will drop 780 students to 7,786. 

Each year more children are graduating from high school than are entering first grade. No matter whether the reason behind it is economical or just a low birth rate, we will have a much smaller district in the next couple of years.  It's not going to change anytime soon. As reported by the Demographer, our area does not have plans or space for upcoming developments that would drastically alter the demographics.

 A much smaller district means all the staffing and space we have now can be utilized in the future to make way for a FDK program.  We all expected the decrease in enrollment, but what is almost more relevant is that the enrollment will not go back up for some time as well. This supports the idea that now is truly the time, as we need to evaluate and restructure our P-8 structure.

Changes in the demographics show that some schools will experience the population shifts differently than others. Long term solutions could include redistricting, which will likely be explored by the task force, and would very likely be able to incorporate planning for FDK space. We will already have the staff, and the space, and with upgrades to facilities and changes to the structure of our district, FDK is a reality and one that CAN happen.

When thinking about the facilities currently in place, we have also encouraged the BOE to look into hiring a consultant that could be hired to look at how a P-8 overhaul can work with our current facilities- thinking about location of bathrooms, how they can be shared by K classrooms, and other creative solutions that will greatly decrease the need for facility funding changes.

While we don't know that our budget won't grow, it appears that it won't be due to FDK specifically. The idea of reviewing the P-8 system will allow the district to reorganize in a way that better uses our facilities and staff while keeping in mind the developmental and educational needs of our children. As the demographics in our community continue to shift, we have an opportunity to possibly decrease the number of times children change buildings while opening the door for increased instructional time for our youngest learners. Exploring options for these changes are important for all members of our community, including those without children in the school system or those with older children. As we have recently seen, the movement for full day kindergarten is not isolated to Bridgewater-Raritan.

 Most districts (both in the county and New Jersey as a whole) either have FDK or are working towards it. We need to take action now to make sure our district offers the best possible start- and overall P-12 experience-  for our children. The reputation of our schools is extremely important to the value of our properties. Working within the general outline of the budget to find the funds for these changes will benefit all of us. (Important to note that the information provided at the April 8th BOE meeting represented the costs overall- not how they work within the current structure of the school district's budget and existing resources.) 

Since the last BOE meeting, we have requested that the BOE and Interim Superintendent Cheryl Dyer, issue a statement to the community about their commitment to this step and offer an explanation as to their ideas and plan. This is something that has done in other neighboring districts as they move to make change and has demonstrated great communication to parents.

We'd like to see our own district administration rise to the occasion and do the same. 

The BREA as well as our parents group all agree that moving forward, we remain committed as stakeholders in the process, and will work to insure the best balance of educating our students along with staffing and fiscal concerns that go along with an endeavor such as this.

Information about the Facebook group can be found here:
https//www.facebook.com/groups/FullDayK4Bridgewater/

Link to Petition:
http//www.change.org/petitions/be-the-superheroes-our-children-deserve-make-full-day-kindergarten-a-realit...

Audio Recording of BOE Meetings:
http//www.brrsd.k12.nj.us/documents.cfm?id=22.349 (April 8th meeting FDK discussion is Part 2 of 2 and starts at 3:21)