Free All-Day Kindergarten Enrolls 57,000 Minnesota Kids
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) - This is the first year of free all-day kindergarten in Minnesota, and by all accounts the implementation appears to be a success.
Statewide, the numbers exceeded expectations. More than 99 percent of all students enrolled in kindergarten -- more than 57,000 kids -- chose an all-day option.
That's up from about 54 percent in 2013-14. That year parents had to pay as much as $4,000 in tuition per child for all-day kindergarten.
Parents and teachers at a St. Louis Park elementary school say the all-day move means kids are learning more than ever before.
Last year only half the kindergartners at Peter Hobart Elementary were full-day students as many families couldn't afford the $3,800 tuition bill.
Kay Carlson has been teaching kindergarten in St. Louis Park for 43 years.
"It was difficult," she said. "We weren't reaching all of the at-risk kids who we really needed to reach, who we are now reaching."
This year, with every family choosing the all-day option, the school district redid their curriculum.
"We thought we had a rigorous curriculum for the last few years," Carlson said. "But this is even more rigorous than that."
The result is a kindergarten class that's further ahead than any Carlson has ever had.
"They will be ahead of where they have been in the past, especially in their reading and their math," she said.
The longer hours have also meant more time to work with at-risk kids.
"They started out not knowing letters or sounds," she said. "They are now reading simple two- and three-word sentences."
But it's not just at-risk kids who are benefiting. Take Piper: She had two older brothers who did half-day kindergarten in St. Louis Park. Her mother, Laura, said she cannot believe the difference going all day has made.
"She is reading probably at a first-grade level, she is confident, she feels capable, she has a ton of friends, and she is just immersed in this school," Laura Truett said.
The change has been so dramatic at Peter Hobart and other St. Louis Park elementary schools that the district is now having to redo their first grade curriculum.
