Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance

There is a meeting this coming Thursday (5th) at 7:00pm in the cafeteria at Fairfield Elementary. A group of concerned parents are meeting to discuss ways to reverse the decision of full day kindergarten every other day and 1/2 Friday's.

We now have pay to play for extra curriculars so it's time to think outside of the box on what can be done to keep 1/2 day kindergarten.

We don't have a powerful lobby group like the athletic boosters nor do I forsee any large donations coming forward from our developer buddies to save 1/2 day kindergarten.

Please show up if you are concerned about this issue and be ready to discuss alternatives.

Thank you.

Research the Issue, Brian


Brian,

I wish you the best of luck with your meeting on Thursday.

I clearly believe the board made a grave error in their decision to go to full-day kindergarten. The few dollars saved are greatly outweighed by the impact on the quality of education.

I would recommend contacting a university or college and obtain some research on the subject. I think research would show it is an awful decision. Otterbein College in Westerville, in my opinion, is one of the best area colleges for education and I'm sure a professor would gladly assist. Let me know if you need any help with Otterbein or researching the topic.

I am upset that the kindergarten issue was NOT one of the cost saving items recommended by the Auditor of State. Instead, I would have followed the Auditor's recommendation, saving $490,000 next year by consolidating 12 bus routes.

By eliminating costly stops and buses that are not even a quarter filled, the district would save triple the number of dollars than the meager savings in all-day kindergarten.

But then eliminating 12 buses does not produce votes for August 5th levy ... scaring kindergarten parents does (or at least that is what some of them believe).

Bus routes

We bus jr Hi and High school together, right? Why can't we bus elementary and Middle school together and stagger the start times just like they do at Jr high and High school? It would add maybe a 20 minute or less length to the bus run but would fill the busses. My son's middle school run has only 15 students, the elementary run just before has 15 seats or more open! Same neighborhood! I would not mind a slightly longer bus ride for one or more of my kids versus reconfiguration of the kindergarten and middle school set up at some cost to save transportation costs! Lets do the simple logistics first, figure out what it saves, then look beyond. They could have reconfigured this routing this year and possibly saved over one million dollars in transportation costs.

Not awful in studies

No one here wants to use research studies if they want to prove full day kindergarten is bad for kids. The bulk of the research I quickly searched for appears to show full day kindergarten in good light. I very quickly was able to view studies by educational organizations, school systems, educators, universities, child welfare groups, early childhood development experts, etc. by simply typing full day kindergarten research into my search engine. Probably not an argument for reversing the decision, but maybe an argument for going full day every day?

By Parent of past full day kid