UPDATED: Supporters Must Raise $420K in 1 Month to Save Full-Day Kindergarten

Taking into account revised savings estimates, Schools Superintendent Valerie Goger said at Monday's school board meeting that the full-day kindergarten can be saved for next year if parents can raise $420,000 by Jan. 21.

"If that amount is to be remitted to the board by Jan. 21, the board would accept it on Jan. 24," a scheduled Board of Education meeting, the superintendent said.

The superintendent's comments were the result of a request by a township couple, Adam and Janina Hecht, who for the past month, have been trying to gain financial commitments from households with children who will enter kindergarten next fall.

"I commend Dr. Goger for listening to my proposal and crunching the necessary numbers," Adam Hecht said at Monday's meeting. The board voted on to reduce full-day kindergarten to about two hours and 30 minutes for 2011-12. That cut, along with the elimination of one period per day at Ridge High School, was among the first of a number of promised program cuts to make up for losses in state aid and next year's tighter budget cap.

Hecht said on Tuesday that about 70 parents had attended a meeting beforehand to discuss his proposal for setting up a dedicated fund to preserve full-day kindergarten in the district's four elementary schools. He said at the Monday meeting that parents of about 100 children had told him they would be willing to contribute to a fund for full-day kindergarten.

Hecht said that plan would cost parents less to keep the full-day program intact then to pay an estimated $310 per month to keep their children for the remainder of the school day at a "wraparound" program that would be run by the Somerset Hills YMCA. He said Tuesday that parents might be asked to contribute $2,000 to the fund, which would still be less than the $3,100 for the YMCA's program.

Contributions to the fund could be on a sliding scale, Hecht said. He said he himself would want to contribute $3,000, as do other parents. Some parents without children entering kindergarten next year also told him they would be willing to contribute some amount, he said on Tuesday.

Moreover, he said, keeping the township kindergarten program "would not require firing teachers or rewriting the first-grade curriculum," Hecht said. The district's plan to reduce the kindergarten day also calls for a revision of the first-grade program to accommodate children coming from a part-day kindergarten program with potentially less time for instruction. 

Hecht said about 320 children are expected to sign up for kindergarten next year, and he had been told by Goger that probably 70 percent of those parents would be expected to sign up their children for the YMCA program.

"It's pretty simple—I'm with him," another parent, Paul Kuceria, told the board on Monday. Kuceria said he and his family had moved to the township because of the "phenomenal" school system. He said he has a 5-year-old due to enter kindergarten in September and 2-year-old twins.

Cindy Mays, another parent, said she had attended the Hechts' meeting before the Board of Education session. "Tonight, we found a banker and a lawyer" who could help with setting up the fund, she said.

Hecht said a dedication fund would be set up to collect the money, which would be returned to parents if the proposal doesn't come to fruition.

Goger said the amount that would be saved by cutting kindergarten was increased because the number of buses to transport children in the middle of the day was about half of the approximately $120,000 that was originally estimated. Even more, the state revised regulations so the district would not required to pay unemployment benefits to laid-off teachers for the next two years, she said.

Hecht asked the board's cooperation in sending out information on the proposed fund through the district's online Friday folder updates, and for a letter from the board outlining its support for the plan.

"We must get the word out," he said. He said he can be reached online.