The Sumner County Board of Education has changed its policy regarding the kindergarten school day. A unanimous vote removed a provision which mandated the kindergarten day be only four hours. Sumner students in their first year of schooling will join older students in a full six and a half hours of schooling. Advocates say the move benefits students and parents with the transition to full-day schooling, but some on the board worried about the new stresses put on teachers.

“Our high poverty students are coming to us behind,” explained Director of Instruction Jennifer Brown, “so we need that extra time to make up.” Brown says students at that age learn by playing, and teachers are asking for more “center time” to engage students in educational play.

According to Brown, after time is taken for lunch and “related arts” such as music, physical education and art, “it leaves very little time for instructional time” out of the current four hours of instruction time.

She cited a list of other benefits, such as better attendance, more time to challenge advanced students, better behavior, faster social development, and even, surprisingly, lower dropout rates for those low-income high-school students who began their education in an all-day kindergarten.

Brown also pointed to the stress caused by the four hour day, for both parents who must find someone to pick up their child while they work, and for the child who is shuffled from one place to another.

Board member Ted Wise raised concerns about whether kindergarten teachers have enough assistants to deal with the extra workload of having 20 or more students for the extra time. Brown responded that one or more assistants are usually assigned for the entire grade, and additional ones assigned for special needs students.

“My concern is that we may be asking a lot, physically, of our kindergarten teachers, because that is a physically taxing responsibility. I think that we may need to look at adding some teacher assistants at the kindergarten level, and that might affect our budget.”

Director of Schools Del R. Phillips, III, responded that all-day kindergarten is nothing new. “When we called around to other districts to see how long they have had all-day kindergarten... our neighboring districts, they really couldn’t even quantify they’ve had it so long.”

District four representative Cox said she had also heard reservations about the new schedule from teachers, but their concern was for Sumner’s youngest students. “Most of the teachers that I spoke with talked about the down period they experienced with these children after lunch.” Cox said major changes in the kindergarten schedule would be needed to make the best use of that extra time. “How can we strategically make sure that the full day is beneficial to them?”
 

Brown said there are constant discussions with teachers and administrators about restructuring the day, including moving the related arts time. “We have ongoing discussions with them all the time, constantly, about differentiating their instruction, structuring the day so it’s best learning. We know about attention span... our administrators are fully aware of that; so are our teachers and how they break that day up to best suit the needs of our students.”

The measure passed unanimously, with all board members present.