{"id":20029,"date":"2016-06-11T08:50:43","date_gmt":"2016-06-11T12:50:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/?p=20029"},"modified":"2016-06-11T08:53:57","modified_gmt":"2016-06-11T12:53:57","slug":"avon-grove-adopts-full-day-kindergarten","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/?p=20029","title":{"rendered":"Avon Grove adopts full-day kindergarten"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AG_FinaL2016_2\"After nearly a year of careful review and discussion, the Avon Grove School Board Thursday\u00a0night approved a Full Day Kindergarten program for 2017-18 school year. The change was recommended in the district\u2019s community-developed Strategic Plan, and is based on research that strongly shows that full day programs help better prepare children to succeed in the rest of their elementary school years.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that a full day program provides a strong foundation in academic, social and emotional skills,\u201d said Superintendent Dr. M. Christopher Marchese. \u201cThe current two and a half hour kindergarten day gives our teachers and students less time than many of them even had during a preschool day. A full day program will allow for more dynamic, hands-on learning. It\u2019s the right thing to do for the students of this community.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Over the last year the district surveyed current parents and worked with local preschools and other community organizations to distribute interest surveys.\u00a0 The results show that there is strong support for and interest in a full day program, and many families that currently seek a full day program at a charter or private program instead plan to send their children to Avon Grove School District\u2019s full day kindergarten.<\/span><\/p>\n

The projected first year enrollment is targeted to be 274 students.<\/span><\/p>\n

For 2017-18, the district expects to add existing classroom space at Penn London Elementary School to accommodate the full time Kindergarten program, without disrupting the existing academic program in grades 1 and 2.<\/span><\/p>\n

The district estimates the cost of providing a full day kindergarten program will be mostly offset in the reduction of expenditures realized through the return of charter school students to the Avon Grove School District, with an operational cost neutral program by the second year of implementation.<\/span><\/p>\n

A team of administrators and teachers has been analyzing the proposed change for months. They examined full day kindergarten curriculum in other school districts and conducted site visits to other full day programs.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSome people believe full day kindergarten is just babysitting, or on the other extreme that it is asking too much academically of our students too soon\u201d said Director of Elementary Education Kalia Reynolds who is leading the team. \u201cIn fact, it\u2019s quite the opposite. Students will certainly have more time on task to truly learn concepts and standards, but they will also have more time to practice the essential self regulation, social and emotional skills while they are learning. At the elementary level, those skills are critical to help them be successful in a classroom setting.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The district will release and post a list of Frequently Asked Questions in the next two weeks, and will begin to post additional information on the Full Day Kindergarten section of the website.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After nearly a year of careful review and discussion, the Avon Grove School Board Thursday\u00a0night approved a Full Day Kindergarten program for 2017-18 school year. The change was recommended in the district\u2019s community-developed Strategic Plan, and is based on research that strongly shows that full day programs help better prepare children to succeed in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20031,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[3175,7579,230],"class_list":["post-20029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-avon-grove","tag-full-day-kindergarten","tag-schools-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20029"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20032,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20029\/revisions\/20032"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}