Jaffrey-Rindge School District explores funding options for preschool program

How do we measure learning among our youngest students?

The Jaffrey-Rindge School District is taking a new approach with an existing assessment tool — a development tracker originally designed for special education students, and applying it universally to all students, and on a more consistent basis.

On Wednesday and Friday last week, the district was visited by WestEd, a national research group that develops approaches and programs for classrooms, to see how they are implementing the system.

WestEd developed the Desired Results Developmental Profile, an assessment required by the state of New Hampshire to track progress of special education students entering and leaving preschool. The assessment measures where students are on both academic and developmental levels, including their understanding and application of language, literacy, math, communication, on a scale ranging from infancy to kindergarten-ready.

Rindge Memorial School Assistant Principal David Fraser said the school adopted the program last year, before it was mandated. This year, they’ve decided to use it as an assessment for all preschool students and to do it several times a year as a type of report card for parents.

“If we’re using it as a requirement for our special education population and getting valuable data out of it, it makes sense to use it for all of our learners,” Fraser said. “If we’re only using this for a small handful of kids, it’s only helpful for that small handful of kids. We’re working toward getting all of our kids to move forward.”

A question of future funding

The preschool program was one that was on the chopping block during budget discussions this year, after voters passed a budget that was $3 million less than originally proposed by the district.

The School Board voted to use unexpended funds to continue certain programs this year, including preschool. While preschool is still planned for next year, administration and the School Board are discussing the best way to fund it, including the possibility of separating the costs for preschool into a warrant article rather than including it in the budget.

By law, the district must provide special education students services from the age of 3 on. Those services don’t have to be provided within the Jaffrey-Rindge schools. They can pay to have those services provided by other districts or specialists, but Fraser said the preference is to always keep educating students within Jaffrey-Rindge whenever possible.

“It makes sense, both financially and community-wise wise for kids to receive those supports and services within our own schools,” Fraser said.

Fraser said the preschool classes are integrated with the larger school in several ways. Once a week, they work with “buddies” from older grades, participate in twice-monthly community assemblies, eat lunch in the regular cafeteria, and are involved in the general school population. As they transition to kindergarten and the grade school, they are familiar with the school and future teachers and peers.

Currently, there are two full-time preschool classrooms in both Rindge Memorial School and Jaffrey Grade School, and two half-day preschool programs at RMS. Access to preschool is not universal, but done by lottery, though Superintendent Reuben Duncan said the district has been able to accommodate all preschool enrollees for the past two years.

The cost of running the 4-year-old preschool, including the cost of four full-time teachers and three paraprofessionals, is about $450,000, split about evenly between the two schools, Duncan said.

Duncan said there are various ways to fund the preschool program, all of which are part of the School Board’s ongoing budget discussions.

There is the first option, which is to include it in the regular budget, as has been the past practice. However, the 4-year-old preschool is not in this year’s default budget, as it was one of the items cut to reach budget goals, and paid for from the unexpended fund balance.

That means that if this year’s budget fails at the polls, the School Board will be faced with the possibility of cutting the program once again, Duncan said.

“Though having preschool is certainly the right practice for our district and our community, when we were facing those large cuts last year, we had to look at things not required by law, and that was one of them,” Duncan said.

The second option is to include the preschool as a separate warrant article. That would allow the program to be funded should the regular budget fail, and the warrant article pass.

Duncan said it would also be an opportunity to gauge public support for early-childhood education.

“People have a voice to tell us what their values are. This community can fight to keep this program and state clearly that they value this program,” Duncan said. “These programs are having a large impact on these children, our schools, and their families, in real time.”