The Londonderry School Board was briefed by the elementary school principals during its most recent meeting, regarding a roundtable discussion on full day kindergarten held on June 5.
The consensus of that roundtable was a need to further educate the community on the process of moving forward with a district plan with two additional roundtables.
“The room was filled, so that was great.” North Elementary Principal Paul Dutton said, he added the
“There was wide-spread agreement that full-day K is what’s best for the students.”
He also said that most parents want an option for full day K regardless of where it is held, whether it remains at Moose Hill or one of the elementary schools.
South School Principal Debra Setterlund mentioned that the district office needs where also brought up, and most felt that combining the two issues had caused some concern. The School District ahead of the meeting posted a memo to the community on its website, following the roundtable discussion.
“We wanted to share a status-update on Full Day Kindergarten with the community,” the District wrote.
It stated, “Since the vote in March, two basic questions on Full Day Kindergarten have repeatedly been asked at our elementary schools and District Office:
- If the majority of the town voted in support of the project this March, why can’t we start full day kindergarten?
- At this time, is there any plan to move forward with full day kindergarten on any timeline?
Seeing the parent and community interest and receiving these questions over and over again this spring, we held a roundtable discussion last Thursday night (June 5th) in the Matthew Thornton library for any community member to attend.”
Black explained during the meeting that he could “see from the room a lot of parents just didn’t understand the process of how a school district makes a big decision.”
“We were joined by a large, motivated group of parents and community members,” the memo from the School District read. “We shared the last two full day kindergarten projects that went to the voters and did our best to answer those two important questions. We then opened up the room to audience feedback, and a wide-ranging discussion on full day kindergarten ensued.”
“Based on the passion and energy in the room last Thursday, we plan on holding further roundtable discussions this summer to help parents and community members understand and be a part of the process to see if we are able to pursue Full Day Kindergarten in the upcoming budget cycle,” the District wrote.
It was explained by Black that they agreed to have two more roundtable discussions this summer with one taking place on July 23 and the other on Aug. 14. Both of those discussions will take place at Matthew Thornton, beginning at 6:30 p.m.
During the meeting the Board also discussed a proposal to have a workshop type meeting, so the School Board would be able to interact with the public, something some members of the community were looking for at the roundtable.
School Board Chair Bob Slater said they could do it during its meeting on Aug. 5 which would allow the public to come and give feedback to the board.