Board defers full-day K talks

Sherpinsky: talks to continue in future, but does not specify when

Talks on whether the North Penn School District should consider offering full-day kindergarten look likely to continue well into the current school year.

Board members gave an update on those discussions during their Tuesday night board meeting, saying talks will continue at a future board meeting — but without specifying when.

“Our reports in August said that it wold come to a future work session. I set the agenda for the work sessions for the school board, in October and November. I’m going to talk to Curt (Dietrich, district superintendent), and we’ll set it up,” said board President Vince Sherpinsky.

Full-day kindergarten was a topic of discussion for much of the summer, as North Penn’s Education, Community and Policy committee heard presentations and held talks on whether to switch from the current halfday to a full-day schedule. Several options were presented to the ECP committee in May outlining ways the district could improve

students’ test scores, including smaller kindergarten class sizes, providing a pre-K summer camp, offering extended day support, implementing full day kindergarten, or adding partnerships with local early learning providers.

In June, the school board then saw and heard data from the Montgomery County Planning Commission on enrollment projections over the next decade, which could impact the numbers of students in each incoming class and, therefore, the size of classes at each school. Parents continued to push for more discussion on class sizes from the board over the summer, and resident Jenna Ott — who is running as a Democrat for a school board position in the November election — asked during the board’s meeting Tuesday for an update on the current timeline for kindergarten options.

“It was supposed to be presented tonight, and a few of us are waiting on that report. I wanted to check in and see if that would be coming up, tonight or at the next couple of meetings,” Ott said.

Ott said she saw in the minutes from the ECP committee’s Aug. 14 meeting that the committee recommended talks be held during the next work session, and committee member Suzan Leonard agreed.

“One of the recommendations at ECP was to bring forward the presentation, that’s been presented twice now to ECP, to the full board at the next work session,” Leonard said.

Sherpinsky replied that he heard that report, but it did not mean the board would take up the issue immediately.

“I didn’t accept that. You heard the report in August, and you know the agenda is set by myself and the superintendent,” he said.

“ECP doesn’t tell us what to do, we tell ECP what to

do,” Sherpinsky said.

Leonard had asked in May for the full board to hear the presentation made to the ECP committee about the additional options, and reiterated that call Tuesday.

“It was discussed that we bring forward several presentations, several options, about promoting some kind of enhanced learning for kindergarten. One of the options is all day kindergarten,” she said.

Sherpinsky said he was well aware of the several options, from reading the minutes of that meeting, and he and Dietrich would decide when talks will continue.

“The ECP committee does not dictate the board’s agenda. It’s the opposite way: the board dictates the committee’s agenda,” he said.

“I hear what you’re saying. I’m just disagreeing with you,” Leonard said.

The North Penn School Board next meets at 7:30 p.m. on Sept. 14 at the district’s Educational Services Center, 401 E. Hancock St. For more information or meeting agendas and materials visit www.NPenn. org or follow @NPSD on Twitter.