Cheshire BOE to Consider Full-Day Kindergarten

Full day kindergarten may finally be coming to Cheshire Public Schools.

Today at 5 p.m. the Cheshire Full Day Kindergarten Feasibility Task Force will make its recommendation to the Board of Education's Curriculum Committee. Today's meeting is in the Humiston School Board Room.

The committee made up of educators and parents has been studying the options of providing a full-day program, which has been estimated to cost about $750,000.

And now those who support the proposal are hoping it will become a reality in time for the next school year. They have taken to Facebook, creating Cheshire Parents for Full Day Kindergarten.

According to the information handed out to parents from the Full Day Kindergarten Feasibility Task Force, 74 percent of the state's 103 school districts have full-day kindergarten, 30 percent of which have been instituted i the last two years. See the flyer distributed by the task force here.

Of the 21 districts in the District Reference Group that includes Cheshire, 18 have a full-day or extended-day kindergarten program.

Eighty percent of respondents to a survey conducted of Cheshire parents this year favored a full-day program, according to the task force. 

"A full-day Kindergarten program allows teachers to be fully engaged in the social world of the classroom and be intentional in their interactions and instruction," according to the task force. "With the many differences among —and wide age range of — kindergartners, teachers need to be responsive to developmental, individual, and cultural variation. Thoughtful, sensitive teaching promotes a joy of learning and prepares children for further academic challenges."