Wheaton-Warrenville District 200 to offer all-day kindergarten

Kindergarten students who need the most help in Wheaton Warrenville Unit District 200 will get extra support, thanks to a longer school day.

Starting next month, the district will offer all-day kindergarten for "at-risk" students at nine of its 13 elementary schools. Other District 200 kindergartners will continue to have half-days of school.

As part of the program, which begins Sept. 20, one full-day kindergarten session will be offered at each of the following elementary schools: Bower, Emerson, Hawthorne, Johnson, Lincoln, Lowell, Madison, Sandburg and Washington.

The 15 students in each all-day class will attend a traditional kindergarten program for half the day. They will get extra literacy and mathematics instruction during the other half of the day. In between, the children will have a supervised lunch period with an assigned aide.

Educators say the goal is to improve "the depth and time devoted to core content material" so the all-day kindergartners can "master the necessary skill set to become successful first-grade students."

"In those first one to three years of school, students learn to read," District 200 spokesman Robert Rammer said. "Then they read to learn."

If students can't read at the appropriate level or do calculations at that level, they often are behind for their entire school career, "so the intervention seems most appropriate to get them as soon as we can to grade level," he said.

District officials have talked about offering full-day kindergarten in years past, but didn't have the money to pay for it.

This year, new census data means District 200 is eligible to receive an additional $300,000 in federal grant money. The funds are targeted to support at-risk students. officials said.

"It's a great opportunity for these kids at those schools," school board President Andy Johnson said. "It would be nice to eventually offer this to all kids across the district, regardless of the Title I status of their school."

Longfellow, Pleasant Hill, Whittier and Wiesbrook elementary schools won't have all-day kindergarten classes this year because they don't qualify for the federal funding. But eligible students from those buildings might be able to join a classroom in another school if space is available.

The all-day kindergarten students will attend classes Monday through Thursday. On Fridays, their nine teachers will plan and meet as a task force to help design a districtwide program. The goal is to have at least one full-day kindergarten class at each elementary school during the 2011-2012 academic year, officials said.

The plan is to fund next year's program with a mix of grant-funded students and tuition-based students.