Full Day Kindergarten Has Long Road Before Approval

Working parents of River Edge kindergarten students may not have to worry about finding childcare if the district moves forward with a proposal by Superintendent Dr. Tova Ben Dov to institute a full-day kindergarten program.

Currently, students at (NBC) attend a modified schedule with three full days and two half days. Students in either Session A or Session B both attend a full-day on Wednesdays.

"At one point we had questions from parents why River Edge does not have a full day kindergarten program," Ben Dov said. "Culturally at the time, it was not a direction the district chose to take, but circumstances are different now."

Among the biggest difference is that there is a larger population of families and students where English is a second language. According to Ben Dov, there are 35 ESL students in the kindergarten program currently.

"If students were available throughout the day, it would make scheduling for that easier," Ben Dov said. "A full day program would create greater opportunities for students to complete work on their own time, better familiarize themselves with school procedure and ease the transition to a full day schedule for first grade."

The main concern though would be an increase in traffic flow at the end of the school day. During Wednesday's, all students for both and are dismissed one right after the other. But is also comprised of kindergarten students that will attend first grade at .

"The traffic problem is the biggest obstacle," Ben Dov said. "We will need to come up with some creative changes to dismissal with staggering the times."

One suggestion by Henzel is to dismiss the Roosevelt-bound children at 2:30pm and the Cherry Hill-bound students at 2:40pm.

"We can't dismiss all of them at once," Henzel said. "If we had 150 students and 15% are going to after school programming or , that still leaves about 100 students standing by the awning. Just the numbers alone, the times would need to be staggered and taking into account Roosevelt parents that have to pick up their older children too. 

"There is a problem on the corner at the beginning of the school year," Henzel continued. "But when you get a rain storm or that first snow or ice storm and it's on a Wednesday everything moves slower. If we allow the extra time it could be solved."

The district's administration proposal called for eight kindergarten classrooms with a maximum of 21 students each.

The Board of Education will continuing discussing the idea of moving to a full day kindergarten program at a future meeting.