Full-Day Kindergarten Coming to Nicholson Elementary

Students at in Montgomery will have access to full-day kindergarten classes, starting with the next school year.

Earlier this week, the West Aurora School District Board approved a plan to bring at least one full-day kindergarten class to each of the district’s 10 elementary schools.

It’s the culmination of years of discussion on this issue, and will allow the district to provide a resource parents have been asking for, according to district spokesman Mike Chapin.

“It’s a big deal in terms of extending our opportunities to get kids ready for 1st grade,” Chapin said.

The West Aurora program kick offs with an information session at West Aurora High School, 1201 W. New York St., Aurora on March 9 at 6 p.m. Both full-day and half-day kindergarten registration will begin at the elementary schools on April 7 from 3-6 p.m.

Full-day kindergarten programs typically find students attending school for upward of six hours per day, and are often used to help students with potential learning issues before they fall behind. Chapin said West Aurora’s program would be able to serve “well over half” of the district’s kindergarten students.

The total will vary school to school, Chapin said. Some schools with smaller student populations would be able to fit all kindergarten students into the full-day program, but others may not.

District leaders have been talking about full-day kindergarten for years, mainly as a way of catching learning problems early—or, as Chapin says, “premediating rather than remediating.”

To that end, students registering for kindergarten will receive an assessment test. Although Chapin did not say that those scoring lower on these tests will get first placements in the full-day program, he said the scores will be used “to find the best fit for each student.”

Jericho Circle issues

The district faces an additional hurdle at Nicholson Elementary. Roughly 100 Nicholson students live in Jericho Circle, an Aurora Housing Authority (AHA) complex that is slated to be demolished in the near future.

However, the timeline for that demolition is still up in the air, and a war of words between the city, the AHA and the West Aurora district (as detailed in this Beacon-News report) has cast further confusion over the issue.

The demolition of Jericho Circle was announced in late 2008, and in December of that year, residents were informed they would be relocated before the next school year started. That news caused the West Aurora district to reduce staffing levels at Nicholson and other schools, in anticipation of fewer students attending.

The complex, however, remains standing and occupied. At the beginning of the 2009-2010 school year, the district found itself scrambling to rehire many of those teachers.

School district and city officials are scheduled to meet with the AHA and the Department of Housing and Urban Development on March 2.

Until there is a firm understanding of the timeline, however, Chapin said the district must assume that the Jericho Circle students will attend Nicholson Elementary next year. That will affect how many full-day kindergarten spots the school can offer, he said.

Other districts

The Oswego Community Unit School District is rolling out open-enrollment full-day kindergarten at its 13 elementary schools this year as well, including the three in Montgomery: , and .

Communications director Kristine Liptrot said parents must choose whether to register for full-day or half-day kindergarten by March 4. District leaders are not certain which schools will get which full-day programs, and will only determine that after looking at the registration data.

“Unfortunately, we won’t have those answers until we find out how many are interested,” Liptrot said.

This will be the first year that full-day kindergarten will be open to any and all interested students, Liptrot said. In the past, she said, the program was open to at-risk and special education students.

Kaneland McDole Elementary School, also in Montgomery and operated by the Kaneland School District, offers half-day kindergarten in both morning and afternoon sessions.