John Rocker wrote recently that All-Day Kindergarten should be a School District priority. Good news John, it is. MPS has increased its commitment to All-Day Kindergarten offerings at the same time the district has adopted program reductions in other areas of the budget. The goal is to increase the offerings until demand from parents is met. Today about 60% of our K students attend an all-day program, one of which is availble at all our schools. About 46% of all our K classrooms are all-day programs.
A recent report on MPS All-Day kindergarten offerings noted the following: All-Day Kindergarten Narrows the Gap in Early Literacy Analysis of the affect of all-day kindergarten released on Nov. 12 by the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) shows that students who attend all-day kindergarten are able to move farther faster and significantly narrow the achievement gap. American Indian, Hispanic and African American students, in particular, showed significant gains in all-day compared to half-day. For example, students in all-day classes had a gain in the number of letter sounds over the year that was around 30 percent higher than that of their peers in half-day. When all-day classes were also implementing full intervention techniques for students, the gain was one and a half times greater for white students and double for students of color. To read the full release and see the presentation to the Board of Education, go to http://www.mpls.k12.mn.us/news/news_release/all_day_k.shtml Jim Grathwol 11-2 MPS Lobbyist 612-668-0223
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