Many Wealthy Towns Still Lack Kindergarten

Jacqueline Nauyokes and her family moved from Boston to Milford New Hampshire two and a half years ago.
She says she and her husband believed Milford would be a nice town to raise their four young children.
Nauyokes was shocked to learn Milford had no public Kindergarten.

"I just assumed that everybody had it and we lived in Boston all our lives and there was always public kindergarten so it never crossed my mind, get up here and I go to enroll my son and find there is no kindergarten."

Nauyokes was unable to afford private school at the time.
She says she had no choice but to home school her son Matthew.

" I wasn't working at the time so we were on one income, our mortgage had pretty much tripled from where we were in Boston, so financially it was just a strain on us."

Matthew, who's now in first grade, has been placed in a federally funded program called "Title One" that helps him with reading.
Nauyokes believes her child's education has suffered because he didn't have a full year of Kindergarten.

"I think it's an absolute disgrace because these kids are either going unschooled or going to different schools with different education and they're being put into first grade and their not all on the same level, they're not as prepared as they should be."

Many parents in New Hampshire face the same problem as the Nauyokes.
15 school districts, all near the Massachusetts border, won't have public Kindergarten this fall.
Helen Schotanus, with New Hampshire's Education Department, says 20-percent of the state's five year olds, or about 3,000 children, have no option but private day care.

"I get these sad calls in August from a family, moved in, had no idea that public kindergarten wasn't there, they have a kindergarten aged child, they go down to register for school, no public kindergarten, they don't have disposable income and they're quite frantic.

The cost of building schools has always been the biggest reason given for the lack of public Kindergarten.
It recently cost Derry, for example, 24 million dollars to build a new elementary school and add middle school classrooms.
But Derry School Superintendent John Moody says the district couldn't even consider kindergarten as part of the bond issue.

"There was a belief that we do need Kindergarten, but the existing problems in the schools in terms of overcrowding and the need for additional space, overrode that real fair and open discussion around kindergarten, it was a very brief conversation, because it had no support at all"

One Derry school is 200 students over capacity.
The district has about 30 portable classrooms.
And Derry's not alone.
Town populations in the southern tier have exploded in recent years, putting a huge strain on the schools.
But Derry School Board member Brenda Willis says there was also little political support for kindergarten.

"Parents of elementary or preschool age children want to see kindergarten, parents who'd children have already gone through the system say, we'll I've paid for it, I don't want to pay for it again."

About 93-percent of Derry's five year olds go to private kindergarten or daycare.
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At Sunshine Preschool, five-year-olds are learning how to count, recognize the alphabet, and read.
Brenda Pierce chose the private preschool for her five year old son Sam.
She says even if public kindergarten were an option, she'd choose private.

"I like the smaller size classrooms the student teacher ratio and the extra time that they may have to pick up and spend on each child, going into a public I think you get into sizes that are big."

Pierce believes public kindergarten should be offered in Derry but
she?s not sure she would approve a bond issue to help pay for it.

"I think it basically comes down to money and taxes going up with another school, I want to give other people the opportunity to send their children to kindergarten, but on the flip side too taxes are already high enough."

While Pierce and other parents in southern school districts feel like their taxes are too high, other districts that offer public kindergarten have the same tax rate or even higher.
What's more, most of the districts without public kindergarten also have higher median household incomes.
State aid has helped boost the number of districts that offer public kindergarten.
Under former Governor Jeanne Shaheen's administration, the state offered to pay 75-percent of the costs to build kindergarten and a share of the operating cost.
Still, taxpayers would have to pick up much of the annual cost to run it.
And for districts like Derry, that was out of the question.
But educators say districts that don't pay for kindergarten now, will end up paying for it in the long run.
State Board of Education member Will Boc.

"We all know when you have kindergarten it cuts down on the high school drop out level, there are higher performances on achievement tests, spending money for kids to attend kindergarten pays money ten fold when you look at other social issues."

The school districts without kindergarten face increasing pressure to get children learning early.
With No Child Left Behind legislation, districts can face sanctions if large numbers of students fail standardized tests.
New Hampshire's Board of Education wants districts offer kindergarten by 2007 as part of new state standards.
If those standards pass, School Board Chair Fred Bramante says towns will face consequences if they don't comply.

'The incentive is that you remain an approved school district, if you are not an approved school districts its tantamount to closing a school.

Bramante says the new standards gives districts flexibility and time to come up with a plan for kindergarten.
But even he admits without state aid, it may be hard to enforce.
A committee is currently assessing how much the new standards may cost. And the new rules would still have to be approved by legislators.
Bramante worries that a looming budget deficit may threaten statewide kindergarten.
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As Jacqueline Nauyokes watches her five year old and three year old play at McDonalds, she worries about their future.
She says while she?s happy the state is finally looking at mandatory kindergarten, it will come too late for her family.

"It's sad, it's just so sad, they're keeping these kids back, they're holding them back from what they should have.?

For NHPR news, I?m Amy Quinton.