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* Zareen Syed at the Tribune…

Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed a bill Wednesday requiring public school districts in Illinois to establish full-day kindergarten by the 2027-28 school year, the first of many education bills expected to be greenlighted in the coming weeks. […]

“Full day doesn’t mean you’re adding to the curriculum,” [Democratic state Rep. Mary Beth Canty of Arlington Heights, who introduced the bill in the House] said Wednesday. “It just means you’re getting more opportunities for the teachers to go through the material in a way that is helpful for themselves and their students. In a 2½-hour, half-day school day, there’s just not enough time to truly get through the curriculum with everything else that we’re asking teachers to do — making time for art and recess and gym.”

Canty said parents who live in districts without the option of full-day kindergarten often face both social and economic barriers, particularly if all adult family members work outside the home.

“The cost of child care is really prohibitive when you only have a half-day program and the hours can be really wonky for working families,” she said, adding that her kids, now in sixth and third grades, would hop on a bus after half-day kindergarten in Arlington Heights District 25 and go to the elementary school for an after-school program to be picked up later because midday transportation was an issue. […]

“What may be right for some districts may not be right for others,” Canty said. “So that’s why in the bill, we don’t dictate how you accomplish full-day kindergarten. It’s just that you do have to provide it.”

* From Senate Majority Leader Kimberly Lightford’s press release after the bill passed the Senate…

Parents who live in districts without the option of full-day kindergarten are often faced with additional barriers to preparing their children for early elementary school. These barriers include, but are not limited to, mid-day transportation, loss of income due to being home with the child or finding additional childcare, and ensuring developmentally appropriate activities are being provided throughout the day.

* Center Square the day it passed the House…

The measure phases the policy in over two years so schools can garner funding for the change, which is more than half the state’s schools, according to state Rep. Patrick Windhorst, R-Harrisburg.

“If the data I have is correct, 478 out of the 851 school districts will qualify for the two-year extension,” Windhorst said.

The bill passed the Senate 52-1 (Plummer) and cleared the House 85-24 (Cabello, Caulkins, Davidsmeyer, Jed Davis, Fritts, Grant, Haas, Halbrook, Hauter, Jacobs, Keicher, McLaughlin, Miller, Niemerg, Ozinga, Severin, Spain, Swanson, Tipsword, Weaver, Weber and Windhorst).

* The Question: Your thoughts on the full-day kindergarten law?

posted by Rich Miller
Thursday, Aug 3, 23 @ 10:59 am

Comments

Definitely agree with the new law.

But I thought full day kindergarten was already “law” or becoming more the norm? The rural school district in western Illinois which I graduated from almost 30 years ago has had full-day kindergarten since the late 1980s. One of the first in that area to offer it.

Comment by Stuck in Celliniland Thursday, Aug 3, 23 @ 11:09 am
The cost of child care is really prohibitive when you only have a half-day program and the hours can be really wonky for working families,”

Is the bill attempting to improve early learning, or have government subsidized/required child care…?

The way it’s explained looks like a day care mandate.

Comment by Downstate Thursday, Aug 3, 23 @ 11:17 am
It’s absolutely necessary from a childcare perspective. Some daycares have an in-house kindergarten, so kids can stay at full-day daycare while doing kindergarten, but a lot don’t and you have to enroll the kid at kindergarten, take your lunch hour to deliver him to daycare, and then go back at the end of the day. Given that you can’t be guaranteed to find a daycare near your home OR work, adding an extra commute in there is a nightmare.

I think a lot of families might prefer half-day in an ideal world, but that world requires robust parental leave, protections for working mothers, and far more robust and affordable childcare options.

Lacking those, we’ll do what we always do, which is ask the public schools to pick up every. single. gap. in our social safety net.

Comment by Suburban Mom Thursday, Aug 3, 23 @ 11:25 am
=“The cost of child care is really prohibitive when you only have a half-day program and the hours can be really wonky for working families=

Very True. My son and his wife have two children in day care. $1700 a month. But this is really what this is all about. Free Day Care. It has very little to do with accelerated education- actually none.

Comment by unafraid Thursday, Aug 3, 23 @ 11:29 am
I am really old but i thought kindergarten was not even mandatory and you could keep your kid home until first grade. I don’t know anyone who actually did it but I thought that was an option

Comment by DuPage Saint Thursday, Aug 3, 23 @ 11:35 am
I like it simply because at the federal level we don’t do enough to support daycare. As far as educational benefit, unafraid is probably correct - I haven’t seen much research re: universal kindergarden, but the evidence on universal pre-K has been very disappointing to those who hoped for a big bang-for-the-buck.

Comment by lake county democrat Thursday, Aug 3, 23 @ 11:39 am
I really don’t see why it can’t be both. Kindergarten as day care and kindergarten as social-emotional-education experience. Students need to learn how to learn in a group, how to defer to others, as well as, how to assert and express themselves in an appropriate way. Also learn their letters, numbers, basic reading, basic math, art, music. They need to learn the rhythm of the school day so they aren’t shocked by it in first where they will learn more complex material.

When I had kindergarten back in the 70s, there was no reading or math involved in kindergarten. It was all about socialization. That changed as the majority of kids started arriving that had had daycare and so already had social skills functioning.

Comment by cermak_rd Thursday, Aug 3, 23 @ 11:52 am
Disagree with the mandate, completely. And I absolutely hate siding with the freedumb caucus people.

This should absolutely be a local decision. The law has no impact on my district, we have all-day kindergarten. But it is an unfunded and very expensive mandate.

=“Full day doesn’t mean you’re adding to the curriculum,” [Democratic state Rep. Mary Beth Canty of Arlington Heights, who introduced the bill in the House] said Wednesday. “It just means you’re getting more opportunities for the teachers to go through the material in a way that is helpful for themselves and their students. In a 2½-hour, half-day school day, there’s just not enough time to truly get through the curriculum with everything else that we’re asking teachers to do — making time for art and recess and gym.”=

Spoken like someone who should not have anything to do with education. You cannot keep repeating the same thing over and over during the day. You will absolutely need to add curriculum. Younger learners get info in shorter increments. They have to have varied and interactive activities to stay engaged.

For all of their bluster about teachers needing more time by Canty and Lightford this is about daycare. They see schools as babysitters and little more. That also tells you what they really think of teachers.

This mandate has a massive cost. Additional teachers at a time when they are hard to find is only one cost. Additional paraprofessionals and additional space. Schools with 1/2 day Kindergarten are usually running two sessions, AM and PM.

If you have to add classrooms, yikes.

Poorly thought out with many consequences.

Comment by JS Mill Thursday, Aug 3, 23 @ 12:02 pm
“It has very little to do with accelerated education- actually none.”

You speak with the authority of an expert, which is interesting because all of the research done on this is contrary to your position.
It’s all good though, seemingly every adult in this country fancies themselves an education expert. I don’t know why anyone bothers to go to college for this stuff.

Comment by Larry Bowa Jr. Thursday, Aug 3, 23 @ 12:02 pm
Also this attitude that the state should not be in the business of day care surprises me. If we want workers, we need to make that possible and one way is to offload some of the sacrifice of caring for the next generation on to the state. If I had my way I would have a far-reaching subsidy program for pretty much every parent, but that’s not going to happen, so as Suburban Mom said, we give the problem to the schools.
But as JS Mill says, it can be expensive for individual school districts. On the other hand, if other districts are already making it work, it seems there are templates that a cash-strapped district can follow to make it work for them.

Comment by cermak_rd Thursday, Aug 3, 23 @ 12:25 pm
The challenge to full day kindergarten is locating teachers who are available for hire in these placements. There is a national shortage of teachers. Many school systems rely on substitutes with a high school diploma to fill empty classrooms.

The materials to fully fund a kindergarten classroom can be expensive. Manipulatives for large and small motor skills, puzzles, blocks, paints, books for stories, paper and pencil for printing upper and lower case letters of the alphabet…the list goes on.

Music consisted of Vince Guaraldi’s albums before rest time. Teaching small motor skills using scissors to twenty-five five year old students was an adventure into the unknown. One of the students cut off one of her braids from the side of her head. I placed the braid in a plastic bag with a note that explained that this occurred in class today.

After that year, I transferred to an upper grade classroom.

Comment by Rudy’s teeth Thursday, Aug 3, 23 @ 12:37 pm
will be interesting to see how some schools find the time and money to build space to double their kindergarten classes by that time. Something no one asked about during the passage of the bill. In short, there are school districts that don’t have space for this. I would buy stock in classroom trailer companies now

Comment by frustrated GOP Thursday, Aug 3, 23 @ 12:38 pm
I’m with JS Mill. Unless Mary Beth (and the legislature) is willing to put her money where her mouth is…I expect greater use of TVs and iPads in under-performing districts.

Comment by Jocko Thursday, Aug 3, 23 @ 1:13 pm
Kindergarten classrooms also have special building requirements (bathroom attached to the room with a low toilet, for example), so you can’t “just” convert another classroom unless that room had been built with possible conversion in mind. (IIRC, the specialized plumbing is the most expensive part.) A lot of districts will have to build new classrooms or renovate existing ones.

That said, I think the “middle class” districts will probably be hit the hardest — high-poverty urban districts often already have Head Start and preschool/early childhood programs and full-day kindergarten, and receive a lot of federal funding to make that happen. Wealthy districts mostly built out for full-day kindergarten years ago when two-income families became the norm in those areas.

It will probably be rural districts and middle-class suburban districts hit the hardest by the mandate, where there wasn’t the appetite to raise taxes to build out full-day kindergarten, but there wasn’t the money and incentives from the feds to build out early childhood education and care like there was in high-poverty urban districts with a lot of single parents.

Comment by Suburban Mom Thursday, Aug 3, 23 @ 1:19 pm
As several have noted above there’s a ton of research that earlier and longer kindergarten exposure pays lifelong dividends to the kids.

And as for the “But where will we find the space?” the State’s birthrate has been and was forecast to continue declining since even before the pandemic.

https://dph.illinois.gov/content/dam/soi/en/web/idph/files/publications/population-projections-report-2010-2030.pdf

And as I’ve heard many times Illinois is a squalid heck hole families are fleeing so there may be district specific space crunches (probably the most affluent ones city families relocated to in 2020-2022) the trend is fewer kids Illinois schools for the decades ahead. Schools can figure this out.

Comment by ChicagoBars Thursday, Aug 3, 23 @ 1:26 pm
=== If we want workers, we need to make that possible and one way is to offload some of the sacrifice of caring for the next generation on to the state. ===

Daycare is extremely expensive and it does not seem that there is a whole lot of extra money laying around. What would you cut to fund the daycare program?

Comment by Hannibal Lecter Thursday, Aug 3, 23 @ 1:33 pm
I did not know that full-day kindergarten was not the law. It has been in our area for over 40 years and I’d consider it a must for the children and for the parents.

Comment by Lurker Thursday, Aug 3, 23 @ 1:56 pm
I haven’t heard of half-day kindergarten (only preschool) and I live in a rural, low income district. I hadn’t realized those were still around.

Comment by Peanut Gallery Thursday, Aug 3, 23 @ 2:01 pm
This is good for many parents who struggle with finding childcare and keeping jobs. It should also give Illinois kids a leg up on education, which is a key factor in economic growth.

Comment by Grandson of Man Thursday, Aug 3, 23 @ 2:30 pm
Full-day kindergarten is important for both the parents (child-care) and( especially) the kids (early learning, social skills.)
If there’s not enough money or not enough teachers, then it should be a priority to find some.
Can’t think of too many thing that are more important than this.

Comment by TinyDancer(FKASue) Thursday, Aug 3, 23 @ 2:34 pm
=== If there’s not enough money or not enough teachers, then it should be a priority to find some.===

I agree but the priority to find the funding should have happened before passing the bill.

Comment by Southern Dude Thursday, Aug 3, 23 @ 3:34 pm
While it is an unfunded mandate, every single district in rural SE IL indicated at a recent meeting that they were already offering full-day kindergarten and had been for years. If those districts, many of which are low-income and have low EAV, can manage it, I don’t see how districts with natatoriums and gymnastics gyms can’t. And it is most definitely in the best interest of the students to have a full-day program.

Comment by Lagartha's Shield Thursday, Aug 3, 23 @ 4:13 pm
And, lest we forget, the language acquisition center of the brain begins to shut down at age 3.

Comment by TinyDancewr(FKASue) Thursday, Aug 3, 23 @ 5:57 pm
My oldest child was born in 1981. The district offered full time kindergarten. He’d already been in day care full time since he was six weeks old. If he’d gone to half day kindergarten, he’d have spent the rest of his day in day care. Doing the same thing he did in kindergarten. Learning, socializing and playing. My opinion was he was just as well off in all day kindergarten

Most parents both worked then and most parents both work now. A good portion of those that only have one parent working have decided on that option because they can’t find it or afford child care. They’d be more than happy to have their child learning for the extra hours per day. Not only donthey can work. Also so their child catches up with the kids that have been in qualified day cares all their lives. Kids that already know what the other kids will learn in kindergarten.

Comment by thoughts matter Thursday, Aug 3, 23 @ 9:17 pm
=On the other hand, if other districts are already making it work, it seems there are templates that a cash-strapped district can follow to make it work for them.=

The method of adding full day Kindergarten does not take much thinking. It is the cost involved in ADDING. Again, if you are half day your district is probably running a morning and afternoon program. So going full day means doubling staff. As @Soccer Mom pointed out, the districts that this will hit hardest are not the wealthy or poor. It is the ones on the middle. If we had to add it (we already have it) we would have to add classrooms as we are maxed out (after closing a building and selling it 10 years ago) and without money from the state we would have to borrow. We are more than 80% locally funded but not a wealthy district so the cost would be locally absorbed.

=If those districts, many of which are low-income and have low EAV, can manage it, I don’t see how districts with natatoriums and gymnastics gyms can’t.=

Because you simply do not understand how it would have to be done. It isn’t just converting a gym to a classroom- you should go to a school board meeting where that is discussed, but be prepared for screaming.

Education is a profession and not an easy one. The some thoughtless legislators that passed this legislation passed the reams of red tape that make this process so challenging. BUt they think they are heros. Banned words.

Comment by JS Mill Thursday, Aug 3, 23 @ 9:26 pm
I am generally against all school mandates. If a policy is a good one, let the locally elected school board make the decision. Springfield politicians should focus on state government, not mandates on local government.

Comment by Just Me 2 Thursday, Aug 3, 23 @ 11:33 pm
Until my school district put an addition on one of the elementary schools, they did not have space for a full-time kindergarten. The had one classroom dedicated to accommodating two groups per year.

Five years of ramp up should be plenty of time to address these issues.

Comment by Politix Friday, Aug 4, 23 @ 2:05 pm