Editor's note: The following statement was submitted to Summit Patch by Speak Up Summit and written by Speak Up Summit President Melanie S. Wilson.
Speak Up Summit is a community advocacy group designed to promote excellence in Summit public schools. Two parts of our mission statement are to provide independent oversight of the schools, the board of education and the superintendent’s office to ensure that our schools are providing the best educational experience possible, and to speak up on those issues affecting our children’s ability to receive an excellent public school education.
To that end, Speak Up Summit is endorsing the addition of Full-Day Kindergarten in our district. We have a responsibility to our students, and based on the facts that have been presented, from an educational perspective, there exists enough data to support that FDK would be beneficial to the students of Summit. FDK sets our students up for a lifetime of academic learning.
Even though the proposal would increase our taxes, the quality of our public schools is what continually draws people to Summit. Investment in our children’s futures will reap benefits for the long term educational and fiscal health of our town. On the flip side, a growing number of similarly rated schools (called I and J districts) are adding FDK, so we need to develop programs that allow us to stay competitive with our fellow schools. FDK, as part of an aggressive five-year program, which looks at facilities/space enrollment needs, curriculum changes and personnel, is critical to maintain our excellence.
We are disheartened by the haste in which Common Council has discounted FDK as an option. Council and the Mayor were publicly unsupportive of the FDK option even before the BOE held its community forum last week. We are respectful of the necessity to consider the additional burden on our taxpayers; however, FDK is a prospect that will better our community. Many parents are now paying to enroll their children in a full-day program… they know the benefits. It is the most at-risk kids that are not being included in longer curriculum-based programs. For several cycles now, the BOE, after many community-wide sessions with key district communicators and stakeholders, has identified focus areas that point to closing the minority achievement gap. A FDK program is one of the keys to closing the gap.
FDK and continued facilities upgrades should be part of our Bigger Plan. Council argues that 65-70 percent of Summit’s families don’t have children in the public schools and therefore it is more fiscally responsible for them to consider the needs of this majority of constituents. Speak Up Summit urges the BOE and the administration to remain diligent in its pursuance of FDK. The onus is on you to prove continually — both to the community and to Council — that the benefits are there for everyone in the Summit community, whether or not they have children currently using the public schools. And Speak Up Summit urges Council and Mayor to be open minded and consider what will truly be most beneficial for all of Summit in the long term.
science programs. I don't see that in Summit H.S. I love visiting my daughter in Summit since it is a beautiful town with a great mall. I think that the administration needs to examine its priorities and look to improving their secondary education.
Increase in taxes is always a concern but honestly from a strategic standpoint building extra space is an investment in the future and infrastructure and it is so important to think ahead versus react in an emergency... And rates are as low as they will ever get. The time to borrow through a municipal bond is now. Otherwise we lose the opportunity to lock in rates this low. Also think from a teacher's perspective half day K creates a very ineffective environment for them. Instead of managing one class and all the paperwork and care for say 20 Kindergarten students they instead have AM and PM upwards of 40 children. To give adequate attention to each child is extremely difficult. And it's so important to get children who need intervention or extra help the services they need and identify their needs as early as possible. This is not easy when managing 40 children. From a parent's standpoint you want your Kindergartener to have ample time with their teachers and each student deserves that one on one time. Studies also suggest early intervention can be a cost savings in the long run. There is no downside to full day Kindergarten but plenty of benefits. I hope this gets the support and momentum it deserves.
The council should be more worried that only a quarter of the town's population has kids and not worried about serving those who don't. The so called "fiscal responsibility" that they feel obligated to fulfill will leave them with managing a town that has a steadily declining population and rising costs <-- means those remaining pay a higher proportion of costs out of their own incomes. Note, taxes don't decline they only rise. Make it for useful and productive purposes such as education that ensures a dynamic and diverse population for the town; a policy that has greater longevity than one that focuses only on its current base of consituents. FDK.......All the way......what else do i have to say
http://familyimpactseminars.org/doc.asp?d=fia_nlarticle_v1i2.pdf Granted FDK won't fix administrative nor fiscal issues within a given high school, but improved performances at earlier levels reduce the need for spending on special education programs and "catch up" programs that a high school may be burdened with and instead be better utilized on special topics classes. For a terrible analogy...better tires don't give a car a better engine, but certainly could reduce its wear n tear. Your kids being in FDK and not improving the HS is not statistically supportive of the argument. Instead consider the % of students who have taken FDK and consider that possibly it would be a better performing HS had that % been higher. A better educated populace demands greater challenges and educational attainment from their institutions. In addition, it also spurs greater competition between peers providing further motivation to achieve more. These perhaps sound like idealist generalizations but they are recurrent themes throughout society.
http://www.strategiesforchildren.org/eea/6research_summaries/07_FDK_Factsheet.pdf. A little effort goes a long way. The earlier link was to show that early education intervention can work anywhere with dramatic effect. Socioeconomic differences do not invalidate the positive results, perhaps variable multipliers as to the effect. Note, there isn't a drastic difference between early education and full day kindergarten (the curriculums are nearly identical, please prove otherwise) so all these studies, regardless of technicalities, do apply and show that generally more time in school reaps greater rewards in the short and long run. I don't suppose you'd argue against that.