Methacton To Implement Full-Day Kindergarten in 2022-23

WORCESTER — The school day will be getting a bit longer for kindergarten students in the Methacton School District after the board of school directors last month approved a full-day kindergarten program for the suburban district.

In a vote during its late June meeting, the school board approved the full-day plan beginning with the 2022-2023 school year.

There are four elementary schools within the district, which is home to about 5,000 students, and pulls kids from Lower Providence and Worcester Townships in central Montgomery County.

School directors discussed the work that had gone into getting the full-day program approved in the years leading up to the vote.

Board member Ralph Navarrete thanked the district administration for its work over the past number of years in developing a curriculum for the full-day program, and getting the data to the board in a concise and coherent, yet still very detailed way.

He called it one of the “best presentations of information that we’ve had in this board.”

“Our community appreciates it,” he said. “This is a giant step forward for Methacton.”

Board member Paul Winters said he was conflicted on the issue in the beginning, but soon came around to supporting the full-day kindergarten plan.

He said the decision to move forward with this is not about money, but rather about educating children and ensuring that they are developing properly from a young age.

“We’ve been talking about this for a long time,” he said, noting that the program can be done in a more cost-effective way than he originally thought a couple years ago.

He said that five years ago “I wasn’t necessarily sure that full-day kindergarten was needed at Methacton,” but he eventually became a believer after doing his due diligence and studying the issue.

Now, Winters says, making sure that all young people are prepared to learn from an even younger age is crucial, “because those are the most important years for setting the stage for them to be successful learners and citizens in the community.”

Board member Kim Aubrey-Larcinese said the full-day kindergarten issue predated her time on the school board, but she was quickly brought up to speed after getting elected as a school director.

“This is a conversation that has been going for a very long time,” Aubrey-Larcinese said during the late-June meeting, which was held virtually due to the pandemic and is available online. “It’s long overdue for us to be doing something to address the needs of our youngest learners. I applaud this board and this administration for making this come to fruition."

The unanimous vote was 8-0 in favor of full-day kindergarten.

According to an informational sheet provided by the district, full-day kindergarten will provide students with more time to develop academic abilities and also improve social, emotional and behavioral skills.

The district maintains that it will also put itself in a more competitive position to attract new families to the area.

District financial figures project year-one costs relating to the program to total around $2,535,158, and new annual costs to be an estimated $281,282.