Written by Andrew Melin, Superintendent
The Valparaiso Community Schools provided parents with a full-day kindergarten program this year as an option to our half-day program. Traditionally, kindergarten in VCS, Indiana and across the nation has been a half-day program with students attending either a morning or an afternoon session encompassing approximately 2.5 hours.
A full-day kindergarten program entails students attending a full day of school comparable to their other elementary counterparts, which in our school system is a 6.5 hour day. In a full-day program, students not only receive instruction in language arts and math, which is the primary focus in our half-day program, but also receive additional instruction in other areas, such as science, social studies, health, art, music and physical education.
A major benefit of a full-day program is the increased time for teachers to identify individual student strengths and areas of improvement and to provide additional instructional support to help each student increase their academic achievement.
When the decision to implement FDK was made by our school board in June, our administrators, teachers and support staff worked diligently throughout the summer to assure classrooms were ready with appropriate furniture, equipment and materials.
In addition, several elementary buildings required transitioning computer labs to regular classrooms, so our information technology department had much work to accomplish to assure those buildings had state-of-the-art mobile laptop computer labs that could be transported easily into classrooms as needed.
Our kindergarten teachers committed themselves over the summer months to review and enhance the kindergarten curriculum to adjust to the full-day schedule.
One month into the school year, we are very pleased with how well the implementation is going throughout our school system. We have 495 kindergarten students in eight elementary schools, an increase of 110 students over last school year. In addition, 476 of our kindergarten students are enrolled in our FDK program. Our teachers, administrators and support staff have done an outstanding job implementing FDK and adapting classroom and building-level practices and procedures to assure our kindergarten students are having the best possible experience.
From a financial perspective, the State of Indiana does not provide the same level of funding support for kindergarten students as it does for other elementary students; however, our governor and state Legislature did increase funding to a Full-Day Kindergarten Grant last spring that provides additional funding support for each enrolled FDK student. VCS would not have been able to provide the FDK program without that additional state funding.
Due to the support of our school board, the increased funding from our state and the dedication of our staff, we believe implementation of FDK will enhance student achievement in VCS for years to come.