William Connors <weconnors07@yahoo.com> wrote:
Ms. Haglund:
On October 17, 2006, you wrote the following to my
wife, Joan Sorteberg.
"A district can offer only half day, only full day, or
they can have both half and full day. If they only
have full day, they get full membership aid. If they
only have half day they can get .5 (or one half) of
the membership aid. If they offer both half and full
day, they get membership aid based on the number of
children attending each option.
"If a district "allows" a parent to take their child
home every day, then the district is providing an
option. In this case the 5K program would be adapted
to allow half and full day participation. Since they
have an option, they should claim those children as
half and full day children as appropriate.
"If the district only offered full day 5K, the program
would have to be set up full day and not provide
curriculum options for part day. However,
kindergarten attendance is not mandatory. If a parent
took their child home every day at noon, the district
would have to report that child as absent half of the
day every day. This would have to be considered
within the school district truancy policies."
I recently received a message from Superintendent
Heidi Carvin of the Evansville School District, which
said the following.
"Bill also asked how half day kindergarteners included
in full day sections are counted for attendance
purposes. They are counted as full day students since
the parents have the option at any time or on a
regular schedule to have them attend full day (I.e.
some parents want their child to attend full time one
or two days a week to participate in something, or
have their child attend full day for special events
such as assemblies or seasonal parties). They are
marked Absent Parent excused for the portion of the
day they are not present. I verified at a Rock County
Superintendent?s meeting today that this is how other
districts are doing this. Since school district
membership is audited on a regular basis by DPI, this
verifies that this approach meets DPI regs."
I am confused by these two messages. Please answer
the following questions for the benefit of the
Evansville school board, administration, and
interested parents.
If the Evansville Community School District makes
known to parents of incoming kindergarteners that the
daily schedule in all of the full-day kindergarten
sections has been arranged so that they have the
option of removing their children everyday at lunch
time, thus obtaining much of the benefit of a half-day
kindergarten program, and the parents of 15
kindergartens remove their children every day at lunch
time, and the school district reports these children
everyday as "absent parent excused," would the school
district receive "full-time" revenue for these 15
children?
If the school district would receive "full-time"
revenue for these 15 kindergarteners, even though
their parents remove them every day at lunch time,
could all 15 kindergarteners be placed in the same
section without jeopardizing the full-time revenue, as
long as the section is officially a full-time section
and the teacher of that section is a available to
teach the full day if any parents in that section
elect not to remove their children at lunch time?
Bill Connors
Interested parent of children in the Evansville
Community School District
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