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Referendum would create classrooms to enable full‑day kindergarten, staff says
Summary
A staff member said a proposed referendum would add classrooms at the district’s three elementary schools and move third grade to the UES, creating space to implement tuition‑free, full‑day kindergarten, reduce class sizes and position the district to pursue state preschool funding.
A questioner opened by noting that Morristown (corrected to Moorestown Township Public School District) is one of five New Jersey school districts that does not offer tuition‑free, full‑day kindergarten and asked how the referendum would address the problem.
A staff member responding to the question said the referendum would create space by adding at least one classroom in each of the district’s three elementary schools and by moving third grade to the UES. "That's gonna create at least 4 open classrooms, if not more, at each of the 3 elementary schools," the staff member said, saying the change would "provide us the opportunity to create the full day tuition free kindergarten, for us to look at decreasing class sizes in first and second grade, and even perhaps enhancing what it is that we're already providing in the way of our preschool programming."
The staff member cautioned that the district could not immediately expand preschool offerings because it is not currently eligible for a state preschool expansion grant. "We are unable at this particular point in time to take advantage of state funding for, preschool programming and expansion," the staff member said, explaining the district is ineligible to apply while it does not offer tuition‑free, full‑day kindergarten.
The staff member also warned about the risk of launching full‑day kindergarten without additional space. "If we went to full day kindergarten under our parent system with the space that we had... we would be running full day kindergarten classes similar to what we're running kindergarten class I mean, first grade classes at 25 or more. And that's not acceptable for kindergarten," the staff member said.
The transcript records a discussion of how the referendum would create classroom capacity and align the district to apply for state preschool funds, but it does not record a vote on the referendum or specify a timeline for implementation. Next procedural steps and the referendum schedule were not specified in the provided transcript.
