KLSD trustees: Other districts lagging on Pre-K plans

CROSS RIVER, N.Y. - KLSD trustees have been hearing a recurring question from residents at info sessions leading to Tuesday’s vote on universal prekindergarten: What are other districts doing about the state mandate to start pre-K services in less than two years?

Based on conversations with their counterparts on other school boards, the answers range from not much to nothing at all, trustees told the school board’s Oct. 8 meeting.

Marjorie Schiff, a past president of both the KLSD board and the Westchester Putnam School Boards Association, was on a recent WPSBA call with about 25 districts. “It became clear,” Schiff said, “that Westchester County, unlike most of the rest of the state of New York, I think, is just wishing this might go away. Districts are flatfooted and don't yet have a plan to meet the mandate.”

At a recent WPSBA roundtable, another trustee, Arwen Thomas Belloni, learned “there are districts in our area that are kind of head-in-the-sand right now.”

“A district that I will not name is basically just hoping that this will get pushed back,” she said. “And there's no indication that that's going to happen.”

That prompted Trustee Lorraine Gallagher to suggest that if KLSD’s bond is approved on Tuesday “you might have a lot of phone calls from neighboring districts saying, ‘Can we have some room in your building, too?’”

Belloni said other districts are not that far along. “They're not even thinking that way,” she said. “They're really at, ‘What are we going to do?’”

A woman seated at the same table, Belloni said, surprised her when by remarking, “We’re kind of just hoping this like goes away.”

“Which is not a plan,” Belloni recalled reminding her.

Schiff, for her part, called KLSD “very fortunate that we have a plan and hopefully our community will support us in wanting to bring together the Early Childhood Center for every 4-year-old.”