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Old Bridge officials discuss state moves on full‑day kindergarten and preschool; transportation and staffing cited as hurdles
Summary
Board members and administrators said Old Bridge already offers full‑day kindergarten; administrators said preschool expansion under recent state actions may be possible but faces constraints including transportation costs, facilities capacity and teacher availability.
At a July 22 special meeting the Old Bridge Township Board of Education discussed recent state action on mandatory full‑day kindergarten and a possible preschool expansion.
A board member asked district staff what the state actions could mean for funding and services. A district administrator said Old Bridge already provides full‑day kindergarten districtwide and therefore likely will not receive additional state aid for kindergarten, but the district could consider reapplying for a preschool grant. "If it was the will of the board to review our preschool application and move forward with that, then that's something we can continue to do," the administrator said.
Administrators warned that the preschool grant discussed previously raised concerns about transport and staffing. The district official said transportation costs were substantial in earlier grant rounds and that facility capacity is limited; the transcript records that the preschool program is currently housed at Glenn School with nine classes and at Southwood with five classes next year for a total of 14 classes, and that additional facilities or adjustments would be required to expand further.
Board members also asked whether special education services would be affected by a preschool expansion. The administrator said the state's model is typically about 10 general‑education students and five students with identified special needs in a 15‑student classroom, and that the state model does not require preschool teachers to hold special‑education certification; instead the state model expects a master teacher to support classroom instruction for students with IEPs.
Trustees discussed revisiting the district’s previous preschool grant application and noted that any move to expand preschool would require reevaluating related services, staffing models and transportation logistics. No formal action on preschool programming was taken at the meeting.
