We reported yesterday that Seattle Public Schools asked parents of incoming Kindergarteners to fill out a survey about raising tuition for full day Kindergarten. The results of the survey were shared today with the School Board during a budget work session to determine next steps for raising Kindergarten tuition.
The Board decided to raise the tuition only to $30 more per month in the 2011-12 school year, instead of the $100 they suggested in the online survey.
According to Seattle Public Schools community blogger Melissa Westbrook, who attended the meeting this afternoon:
The bottom line is that the Directors felt the over $100 increase per month for full-day kindergarten was too much.
They received over 2,000 responses to the kindergarten survey but Communications staff said that they wanted to be clear it was quick survey via the Internet and was likely not a truly comprehensive polling of kindergarten parents. I think the Board was grateful for the information it did generate.
Most parents (about 55-65%, depending on if they had a current K or incoming K) said they would pay the $310. About 13% said they wanted half-day and the rest were unsure. Put those last two together and that’s a lot of parents who might only go half-day and there is no true half-day program.
Currently, parents are paying $207 a month during the school year for full day; and though the State subsidizes half-day Kindergarten, students attending “half-day” means attending the full-day program but leaving halfway through, according to the language on the SPS website:
Half-Day Kindergarten
Students can opt to enroll for half-day program participation, which is free of charge. Most schools can accommodate kindergarten students who choose to attend for half of the program day. Please talk with the Principal if you are interested in half-day participation only.
Coe and Salmon Bay offer a formal half-day kindergarten program for school year 2010-11 only **. Students must attend Full Day Kindergarten if participating in a language immersion program.
“quick survey via the Internet” What the… The people for whom this cost increase is prohibitive most likely have very limited Internet access. Some people can’t afford the Internet or the devices that connect to it. It boggles the mind.
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1809/internet-usage-higher-income-americans
57% of households who earn less than $30k use/have internet access at home. 80% in the $31-49k range.
So if that is your definition of “very limited”….
wait a sec, there is no formal 1/2 day kindergarten in SPS? you have to pay for full day and if you don’t it sounds like you’re missing out? I think this is ridiculous and will definitely require more research on my part the next few years before my daughter reaches school age.
I went to full day kindergarten for 2 1/2 months back when I was 5 and it was awful and not for me, then my family moved and I went to 1/2 day kindergarten and it was much better, so clearly I have a bias against full day kindergarten. Why does kindergarten need to be all day? so you don’t have to pay for daycare anymore?
Interesting fact: Kindergarten (at least in this state) is not obligatory; in fact, you don’t have to go to school until you’re age 6 (it used to be age 8!)
@GCP I can’t speak for other schools, but at John Stanford the kindergarten has to be full day so that the children can benefit from the immersion program. My kindergartener spends his mornings in English class wehre they do language arts, and in the afternoon he has Spanish, where they learn math and science. To put him in half day would mean that he missed out on Spanish, math, and science, and also PE and music which are offered during the afternoons.
The half-day programs that are offered are very short. I think Salmon Bay’s is 8:30-11:45, so a shorter day than most preschools.
In my short time as the parent of a kindergartener, I have realized that kindergarten today is really what first grade was when I was a child. The children are really working on academics and the free time/art time is limited. My son has a fall birthday, so he was 6 by the time school began and I am glad he had that “extra” year in preschool because Kindergarten definitely feels like school.
I think that eM has a good point, even in light of Batman’s statistics. I am fortunate enough to have round-the-clock internet access on my phone as well as home and work computers, but I know that many families do not. (Or even if they do have internet access at home, they may not have the luxury time to browse and comment and take surveys as much as others do…)
Personally, I hope that SPS does not make a habit of collecting opinions from the community by “short internet surveys” alone.
Also, does anyone know whether MacDonald will offer only full-day kindergarten, given that they also have a language immersion curriculum? Even knowing that my kid is not legally obligated to attend kindergarten, we would like for him to have the option to attend half-day school… I agree with the previous poster who implied that the recent movement towards full-day kindergarten has been driven, in part, by parents’ desires/needs for extended daycare. That’s fine for families that roll that way, but not all of us do. (P.S. I know that we don’t HAVE to send our kid to MacDonald, even if we live a block away, but we would like to…)
CTL, if they start language immersion in the fall, kids will have to do full-day Kindergarten, like students at John Stanford.
Thanks for the information, Margaret!
Do we know if this is official yet? Is the cost for all day k officially $237 per month?
The smaller increase was agreed upon and voted by the Board on February 15, but nothing has been posted on the SPS website yet. This is the link that will have that information, but as you can see, it hasn’t been updated since Feb. 4.
http://www.seattleschools.org/area/eso/pay4k.html
Thanks Margaret!
The way the survey was designed it did not allow for an option that said “I will pay for full day even though it will be cost prohibitive, because I have no other choice”