Greeley educators say benefits of all-day kindergarten worth the money |
Sherrie Peif

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Greeley educators say benefits of all-day kindergarten worth the money

While Naliyah Mireles and her classmates at Billie Martinez Elementary School are standing in line, anxiously awaiting their short walk down the hall to music, kindergartners across town at Monfort Elementary are learning the letter "N."

Now, consider that half-day students alternate physical education, music and art a total of 30 minutes per week while their full-day counterparts alternate it for four hours. Likewise, full-day students spend more time learning reading, writing and math and get three more hours of individualized help.

The challenge for District 6 is that some students spend only half days in the classroom and others full days, but all kindergartners in District 6 must finish the year with the same set of skills.

"I can't even imagine doing a half day," said Misti Murray , a kindergarten teacher at Martinez for the last nine years. "I student taught at Jefferson when it was an elementary school and did two half-days. They got a little bit of writing, a little bit of literacy and a little bit of math, and it was time to go home."

Kindergarten isn't what it used to be.

"They don't sit around and color all day," Murray said. "Our duties are so much different than what they were. There is so much they are expected to know by first grade. There is a lot of work to do. I can't imagine getting what we need to get done in a half day."

However, teachers across the state must try to do exactly that because school districts cannot offer full-day kindergarten in all schools.

Educators say they should.

So it's no surprise that just about everyone in the business is crossing their fingers that Amendment 66, the funding mechanism for SB-213, passes in November.

All-day kindergarten is one of the things the $1 billion income tax increase is intended to fund.


Greeley-Evans School District 6 has 39 sections of all-day kindergarten and 28 sections of half-day, and teachers like Cari Pettyjohn at Monfort Elementary School are finding creative ways to cram 26 hours a week of instruction into 13.

"We have double the amount of kids and half the time," Pettyjohn said about the curriculum, expectations and standards for kindergartners. "All the kids have to be at the same benchmark at the same time."

The more impoverished areas of town have enough students on free and reduced lunches in their neighborhood school to qualify for Title I funds — which pays for all-day kindergarten classes at Bella Romero, Madison, Maplewood, Centennial, East Memorial and Martinez.

Other district schools have a mix of some all-day and some half-day, despite in many cases the majority of their students being classified at-risk. There is just not enough grant money to go around. School districts must decide where the funds go.

A school in Greeley qualifies for Title I funds if 90 percent of the students are on free or reduced lunches, which means their families meet federal poverty guidelines. That leaves out many schools who are still above the 70 percent mark. In other districts such as Poudre R1 in Fort Collins, schools with a threshold as low as 35 percent receive Title I funds.

For schools such as Monfort, that population is growing, but not enough to receive the funds to pay for all-day kindergarten.

"Our prior population was able to do that," Pettyjohn said about different kinds of students in the past who could meet the challenges of half-day kindergarten. "But we are coming up with new ideas to get them ready for first grade."

It's not just kindergarten, however, that SB-213 aims to expand. It will also pay for the Colorado Preschool Program, in which eligible 4-year-olds attend preschool — not the small fraction of students who attend preschool now. In Greeley, that number is about 480 with another 400 plus on the waiting list. Eligibility for the CPP is not tied entirely to income. Eligible students may come from families of any income. If they are not living in poverty, they are eligible if they have other factors that identify them as at-risk, such as first-in-family to graduate, single-parent household, and sensory, small-motor or large-motor deficiencies, to name a few.

Educators say early childhood education is important.

"A lot of my kids come not ready." Murray said. "They need to learn how to be at school. They may have rules at school that they don't have at home. They don't know how to get in line. They don't know how to move from table to floor or back."

No one knows the pressures of early childhood education more than those who provide it.

"It is a social-emotional thing," said Melissa Lelm , the director of Early Childhood University, which houses 64 of District 6's CPP slots. "They also need to learn how to play with each other, how to stand in a line, how to follow directions. Twenty years ago that's what kindergarten did; now you're expected to know that stuff when you start kindergarten."

According to the Chicago Tribune, a study done in 2011 showed that "children who attended an established preschool program in Chicago completed high school at higher rates, stayed out of jail, were less likely to abuse drugs or alcohol and improved their living standards as adults." The study was conducted over a 25-year period by the University of Minnesota and tracked 1,400 children. They were compared with children who didn't attend preschool.

The typical preschool day includes language and literacy, creative expression, math, sensory training and science. All lessons are tied to a weekly theme such as apples, where language and literacy may include reading about Johnny Appleseed, math includes counting apples and science looks at the life cycle of an apple.

"When we were little it was learning how to tie your shoes," said Lynne Dart, a teacher at the preschool. "Now it's more fast paced. … Kids no longer cry their first day of kindergarten when they've come from a pre-k environment. They are ready to learn."

District 6 Superintendent Ranelle Lang said all-day kindergarten and expanded CPP slots would go far to help raise the district's overall achievement level.

"Closing that gap when a child is small makes good economic sense," Lang said. "When you invest in early childhood education, the results continue into their senior year. It's a wise investment to help kids get the skills they need early. It would be significant in our district with the majority of the kids coming from homes without resources. It would give them the background knowledge and experience they need."

The passage of Amendment 66 doesn't come without some concerns. There are unanswered questions about finding the room and the qualified teachers for full-day kindergarten.

Wayne Eads, chief operations officer for District 6, said the district would have to find between 25 and 30 more classrooms to accommodate full-day kindergarten for 700-800 kids.

"I'm not sure what that would look like," Eads said. "It could be portables or additions to some buildings or boundary shifts, and we haven't really estimated a cost."

The school board would have to apply for additional grant money to fund the capital improvements as it does not have enough in reserve funds, Eads said. "I can promise we will be very aggressive in taking advantage of any grant opportunities to improve our facilities," he said.

The preschool expansion, too, has unanswered questions such as what qualifications teachers will need and how the additional slots will be assigned. "We'll have to wait and see," Dart said. "If they have to have the same degrees as teachers, then they should be paid the same as teachers or it will go back to babysitting. We'll just have to see."

Regardless, those who make their living in early childhood education all said the benefits of all-day kindergarten far outweigh the problems.

"The more time they can be in school, the more they will achieve," Dart said. "It's not like the old days when you had the parent who could pick up her child and go home and nurture them and help them. They are all working and kids are going to daycare. If they are going to be away from home all day anyway, I'd rather have them in school all day."