Akron Public Schools to offer full-day pre-K starting this fall, but what will it cost?

Akron Public Schools will begin offering all-day pre-kindergarten classes starting this fall, Superintendent Michael Robinson said Monday, but he doesn't yet know how the district, which is already facing a deficit, will pay for it.

Half-day classes will still be offered as needed, but Robinson indicated the plan is to offer only full-day pre-K classes the following year.

Enrollment in pre-K for next year will begin as early as this week, he said. He didn't have an exact number of seats that would be available in either half- or full-day pre-K, but he said if the district runs into staffing or space issues down the line, families who signed up later during the enrollment window could end up on a waiting list. Robinson did not say how long the window to enroll would be open.

Robinson said he hasn't determined how the district will pay for the expansion of a major program, but he committed that it will move forward this fall.

"I don't have time to wait to see if I can help kids learn to read," Robinson said in comments to reporters after the meeting.

According to information the district provided Tuesday, half-day pre-K currently costs $5.5 million, which is about $7,857 a student for 700 students.

Treasurer Steve Thompson said Monday night that doubling the current cost would be a fair estimate for the cost of moving everyone to full-day. The price could be less if more families opted for the half-day option and total pre-K enrollment doesn't increase. But the district is pushing for more families to enroll.

The state does not contribute per-pupil funding for pre-K as it does for K-12, but the district currently receives about $1.9 million in grant funding for the program.

The district already has to find a way to cut $15 million, about 4%, out of the budget before the next fiscal year starts in July. A levy request is also expected in the coming months.

Robinson said the expansion is not subject to board approval, although the board does approve the budget. Board President Diana Autry voiced her support for the initiative following the meeting and said the board was behind it.

"That's going to ultimately help the whole community, the whole city," Autry said.

Robinson said money would be moved from elsewhere in the budget if the district can't secure outside funding. Students whose families financially qualified for half-day pre-K from the district will still qualify for free full-day pre-K.

Robinson said going to full-day pre-K is not part of Mayor Shammas Malik's push for universal pre-K, which would guarantee a seat for all students whose families are under a certain income level.

Pre-K teachers work a full day, but with two groups of students, one in the morning and the other in the afternoon. Keeping just one group for the full day would double the number of teachers required if the same number of students stayed in the program and class sizes remained the same.

Full-day pre-K is often more appealing to parents who would otherwise have to find another childcare option during the day.

Thompson said that at his previous job in the Willoughby-Eastlake City School District, enrollment in pre-K increased by about one third after they moved everyone from half-day to full-day.

Thompson said his team is putting together proposals about how to fund the program.

"We are going to have to switch dollars to that, obviously," Thompson said. "Something else will receive less dollars."

Akron Education Association Pat Shipe said full-day pre-K in Akron is "long overdue," but she questioned the district making a commitment to it without a solid plan for how to do it.

"Being an early childhood educator myself, I would completely support full-day pre-K for our Akron community," Shipe said. "I think it's long overdue. However, we have to have a realistic roadmap to get to that point. And as of now, I'm concerned that it doesn't appear the superintendent has either a realistic plan on how to implement full-day pre-K, nor does there seem to be any idea of where finances are going to come from to support all-day pre-K in Akron Public Schools."

Robinson said full-day pre-K would give teachers more flexibility and time with their students. The goal, he said, is not just to enroll more students, but also to increase their readiness for kindergarten. This year, just 26% of the district's kindergarten students were assessed as being ready for kindergarten at the start of the year.

"I'm interested in trying to catch those kids early," Robinson said.

Akron school board still considering redistricting plans

Because of the expansion from half-day to full-day, Robinson said, the district may now have use for two buildings that were slated to close, Essex and Stewart Early Learning Centers. Both have students in them now but have high maintenance needs.

The possibility of keeping those buildings open was a change to the redistricting and school closure plan the administration previously presented to the school board, which was slated to vote on the proposal Monday night, but it was removed from the agenda before the meeting. A new date for a vote has not been set.

The redistricting proposal would close Robinson CLC as an elementary school for it to become the new home of STEM High School.

The STEM students have to be out of their current building, the former Central Hower High School building now owned by the University of Akron, by the end of this year. The needed renovations would cost an estimated $500,000 to $1 million.

Robinson students would move to David Hill or Mason CLC.

Firestone Park Elementary is also slated to close as part of that proposal, with students being rezoned to Glover, McEbright and Voris CLCs.

No matter whether Essex remains open or closes, the Harris Jackson kindergarten classes currently housed at Essex due to overcrowding at Harris Jackson would return back to their home school under the proposal. That will trigger additional rezoning of elementary boundaries in the North cluster.

Some Harris Jackson students will be rezoned to Barber CLC, taking them out of the North cluster and putting them into the East cluster. Forest Hill CLC will also have some students rezoned to Harris Jackson, and a small number will be moved from Barber to Seiberling CLC.

If the board votes to approve the closures, the district will reopen the open enrollment window for students affected by rezoning, so families could also opt to apply for a transfer to another school within the district, but they would need to provide their own transportation.

Robinson said he wanted to delay the vote to send out a letter to all families in the district about the final plan. That letter was sent out Tuesday afternoon.

Contact education reporter Jennifer Pignolet at jpignolet@thebeaconjournal.com, at 330-996-3216 or on Twitter @JenPignolet.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Akron Public Schools offering full-day Pre-K starting this fall