At their regular meeting on January 22, the Chardon Board of Education voted unanimously to implement universal all-day every-day kindergarten starting in the 2019-20 school year. The plan will cost the district about $140,000 annually in additional personnel costs, as well as $150,000 to fund a modular unit that will house art and music classes at Munson elementary. The district will also lose around $65,000 in annual revenue collected from parents enrolling their children in optional tuition-based all-day every-day kindergarten.
This author isn’t necessarily opposed to the plan, as studies show full-day kindergarten produces greater learning gains per dollar spent than other well-known early education options. Absent from the plan though, is a resolution to standardize the admissions cutoff dates with surrounding communities.
Since the 2001 school year, school district boards may choose to adopt the first day of August instead of the thirtieth day of September as the date by which a child must be 5 years of age to be admitted to kindergarten, and 6 years of age to be admitted to first grade. If a district opts for the August 1 cutoff date, parents with students with birthdays between August 1 and September 30 may seek early admission which requires a lengthy testing process that not many pass.
Chardon and Newbury are the only districts in Lake and Geauga counties that have chosen to set their cutoff date as August 1, and Newbury may soon become irrelevant with their pending merger with West Geauga. Riverside LSD recently resolved to reverse their August 1 cutoff date and are joining the rest of the area with a September 30 cutoff date for the 2019-20 school year. Why must Chardon be unique?
This arbitrary change in the admissions cutoff date affects approximately 1 in 6 families. It removes the choice of when a child starts school away from those that know the child best, and place it in the hands of a school bureaucrat. This can have a long-term negative affect on students that are unnecessarily held back.
There is also a larger impact on the community as a whole. Young families considering moving to Chardon may not move here due to this admissions policy, possibly devaluing our homes. More often though, families moving here are not aware of this unique policy and end up with few options to provide the best education for their child.
These issues were presented to the board during their regular December meeting, and in a follow-up letter, Dr. Hanlon had indicated admissions cutoff dates would be considered during the ADED process, yet it was not included. I urge our readers to contact the school board and demand that admissions choice be restored to many parents in our community!