School board turns down preschool plan

The Mat-Su School Board isn't ready to open the barn door to 3- and 4-year-olds, so regular classes next fall will once again begin with kindergartners.

A committee of principals and teachers from throughout the district recently proposed offering preschool to 3- and 4-year-olds in Mat-Su Borough schools that have enough room.

"It's a win-win situation," Assistant Superintendent Bob Doyle told board members when the proposal was first brought to them earlier this month.

By allowing what the committee called "3- and 4-year-old kindergarten" at a handful of rural schools that are under building capacity, Doyle said, the district would make better use of available space, earn more state dollars for additional students and offer another service to communities that might not otherwise have access to preschool. He said the administration recently learned that other districts in the state have adopted a similar approach.

The proposal came to the board as a change in wording in the district's admission policy, lowering the potential admission age from 5 to 3 years old.

The majority of board members, however, felt it wasn't just a minor policy change but instead the introduction of a public preschool program.

"Since money is involved, we will eventually be targeting these kids … We are opening a barn door," board member Larry DeVilbiss said. While it may start out as an optional offering at rural schools, he said inevitably the district would be designing buildings and curriculum with the idea of attracting more preschoolers and, therefore, more state dollars.

Three-year-olds, DeVilbiss argued, should still be home, bonding with their parents rather than being placed in an institutional educational setting.

DeVilbiss predicted he would be the "lone wolf" in his vote against the proposal, but instead he was joined by Bob Johnson, Mike Chmielewski and board president Dan Contini.

For Contini, the issue was one of fairness. Because the program would initially be space dependent, preschool could only be offered in under-capacity schools. Most of these are in rural areas such as Sutton and Trapper Creek, while core-area schools wouldn't have the room to offer preschool.

"I think we need to treat everyone the same," Contini said.

And like DeVilbiss, Contini felt it was more than a policy change.

"It seems to me like it's a whole new program," he said.

Johnson said he was voting against it as well because the district shouldn't be branching out in new directions when it is barely managing to fulfill its current obligations. Also, he said, he had too many questions about how the preschool program would be implemented.

"What actually happens next fall?" he asked. "And who decides how and when?"

While the majority of the board seemed to find more questions than solutions in the proposal, member Carl Gatto said he felt it had the potential to help children who otherwise might fall through the cracks.

"This is an offer, not a mandate," Gatto said before voting along with Linda Menard in favor of the plan. He said while he wished the school district didn't have the responsibility and that preschoolers could find the bonding and support they needed at home, he said there are children with dysfunctional home lives who need the extra assistance.

"I'm hoping these kids at least get a start at a good education," he said.

Supporters of the plan also argued that it would also allow the district to identify students with learning problems at a younger age, and so help them earlier.

While the proposal failed, the district will continue to offer its existing preschools, which include classes for special education students and grant programs that schools have individually applied for.