New York State Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Governor Andrew Cuomo have announced plans to jointly push for full-day kindergarten for all the Empire State’s school districts.
Heastie says they’ll begin that effort with next year’s state budget, but they’re letting everyone know now that it’s time to help districts with half-day programs move up to full-day. That means providing a funding line in the budget to help them out.
Full-day kindergarten has been shown to give kids a head start moving into elementary school, but it’s expensive. This spring, Pittsford Central Schools lost their first budget vote because they wanted to exceed the state tax cap, mainly to fund a move to full-day kindergarten. They were forced to rework the budget and continue with half-day to stay within the cap.