Washington State Kindergarten Watch

When a “half day” isn’t a half April 19, 2008

If you are a parent of a school-aged child, you are probably familiar with “early dismissal” or “late arrival” days. This is typically one day during the week that’s shorter than the others, i.e. Mondays or Wednesdays, in which teachers can plan and work on career development.

In some schools, the kindergarten programs shoftens significantly, such as an hour and ten minutes for afternoon students in the Lake Washington School District on Wednesdays. The shortened program hardly seems like enough time to wipe noses and get the little ones settled in before it’s time to turn around and go home. Either this is a brand-new approach to math, or the program isn’t truly half a day in some cases, since the full-day students attend for 5ish hours on the shorter day in some schools.

If the kids ride the bus, an hour and ten minutes seems like a high ratio of traveling and transition to actual instructional time. What’s interesting is that some school districts don’t shorten the kindergarten schedules as much for the early release days, offering in some cases more than 2 hours.

Another ramification in some districts is that afternoon classes are shorter than morning classes or vice versa on the career development days. For example, the half-day program at the Lake Washington School District is more than 1.5 hours longer for morning students than for afternoon students at the same school. Shouldn’t a pubic school provide equal instructional time to all students? Other districts, however, better distribute the shortened day across both morning and afternoon programs.

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