Park Ridge-Niles Community School District 64 parents, teachers and administrators say they are so far pleased with the decision to switch to full-day kindergarten — $25 million price tag and all — as the school year gets underway.
They cite stronger relationships between students and teachers and higher-quality instruction as just two of the positive outcomes of creating a full-day kindergarten program.
After years of discussion, the district made the move to pivot from two sets of half-day kindergarten classes to a full-day program in August of 2021, voting to build additions to the district’s five elementary schools for new classrooms alongside a relocation of the district’s offices and upgrades to Jefferson Middle School in Niles.
That program is just a few days into operation. But for Amy Ireland, who teaches kindergarten at Field Elementary in Park Ridge, the benefits are already obvious.
Six hours of instruction time versus three means “more time to practice those school-ready skills, more time for differentiation and small group instruction,” she said. “They have more time for purposeful play, for making friends.”
Under the half-day schedule, Ireland said “it felt like the day went by super quick.”
“There’s so much to teach with the Common Core standards for kindergarten and trying to do it in a half day is so difficult,” she said. “So having the gift of extra time is absolutely wonderful.”
Ireland’s first set of full-day students are adjusting well, she said. Field Elementary Principal Courtney Goodman said a big part of the kindergartners’ adjustment to school is a set of skills referred to as “school readiness,” or things like walking in a line, opening their lunchboxes and eating with their peers and following adult directions.
“I’m really impressed with how quickly I feel like our kindergartners have learned some of those school readiness skills,” Goodman said. “And I think it’s because they’re here all day. They just have more opportunities to practice those independent skills.”
The full-day model is also helping to solidify connections that help students succeed in school, she added.
“Already, you can see really strong relationships between the students and their teachers,” she said.
Denise Wsol, Shannon Hickey and Lauren Prandato are all kindergarten parents who were dropping their students off at Field.
Prandato said she was happy to see the school doing assessments with the kindergartners that she doesn’t think her older child, now in second grade, received.
“It’s good that they’re already jumping on those things to give kids those services this year, so that they’re more successful in first, second, third grade,” she said.
She added that the assessment felt particularly important for this year’s class of kindergartners, for whom the impact of the pandemic is still coming into focus.
“We’ve got to make sure that they aren’t behind because who knows where they’re at?” she said.
Wsol said she was still watching how her child responded to the full day curriculum.
“I think the kids are also still adjusting; they’re going to get exhausted,” she said. “But it is wonderful to have that opportunity for them.”
Wsol no longer even minds the tuition of $3,240 per kindergartner per year.
“We weren’t happy about the tuition at first, but it is absolutely worth it,” she said.