Child advocate Shelly Locke told the board that some children in Cache School District ride buses nearly two hours each day to attend kindergarten, adding up to an eight-hour day for children in full-day kindergarten. Locke asked the board to preserve the option of half-day kindergarten.
Parents attending the meeting were reminded that kindergarten is optional in Utah and assured that phasing out half-day kindergarten is not under consideration. But Locke reiterated her fears: that if full-day kindergarten becomes common, it may become too inconvenient and expensive for districts to offer the half-day option.
The state school board heard presentations from the Salt Lake City and Box Elder school districts showing dramatic achievement gains for disadvantaged students in all-day kindergarten pilot programs and lesser gains for other students in the classes.
Meetings of the state school board continue today at Logan's Bridgerland Applied Technology College.
