It was not that long ago that the New Rochelle Board of Education approved adding Universal Kindergarten. At the time, this program was presented as “free” by Assistant Schools Superintendent for Business Affairs John Quinn. The program is now costing the district well over $1 million a year.
Get ready for Universal Pre-K…at a cost of $1.6 million a year.
Board Resolution 12-135 indicates that the district submitted an application to the New York State Education Department to be part of the “Universal Pro-Kindergarten Program” Under Section 2521 of the Education Law.
The money will be used to pay for Instructional Salaries ($780,079), Teacher Retirement ($89,709), Social Security ($59,676), Medical Insurance ($74,955) and something called “Contractual” ($591,300).
The line item under Appropriations does not specify what “Contractual” means.
The resolution states that site providers in addition to the Barnard School for 2011-2012 school year include:
- The Children’s Center
- Guidance Center
- Y.M.C.A.
- Pre-School Learning Center
- Weekday Nursery
- New Rochelle Day Nursery
- Martin Luther King Center
- Holy Name of Jesus School
UPDATE: A reader emails:
On September 20, 2011, Dr. Jeffrey Korostoff sent an email to the schools on the list. Due to current financial conditions some of the programs are asking for more students so they can invoice them back to the City School District of New Rochelle. In his email, Dr. Korostoff explains that there is less state money this year and to just keep the number of seats at current levels they we will be allocating funds from the current budget to subsidize Barnard rather than reduce enrollment at Barnard. Given this, the District is not inclined to increase the amount of “seats” being subsidized at the private and parochial schools.
The private and parochial school “collaborators” will absorb somewhere around 220 students. The school district will pay $2,700.00 per child for 94 children and $3,600.00 for the other 126 children for a total of $707,400. This does not include pre-K students enrolled at Barnard School.
The reader closes by asking “Do you think the breakfast’s, lunches (for some) and the busing is included in the true costs?
Talk of the Sound has obtained a copy of the email sent by Korostoff last month:
To the Directors of our UPK Collaborating Sites:
A number of you have called my office to request additional UPK seats. In order to be responsive, I have asked my secretary —– to contact each of you and check how many of your UPK seats have already been filled. Just so you are aware, our district’s UPK allocation for this year was decreased by the State Education Department, which means that we have fewer subsidized slots available to us.
Despite this decrease in our UPK grant award, a decision was made not to reduce the total number of seats made available to our collaborators. Instead, more local dollars will be required to subsidize the students attending our UPK program at Barnard. But what this also means is that we cannot increase the number of seats provided to each of your schools unless some seats assigned to collaborators are unfilled. When Marie spoke with each of you, we learned that there are no vacant seats. Therefore, we cannot increase anyone’s allotment.
Please understand that, in the interest of fairness, we have continued to provide each site with the same number of UPK seats that you have received in prior years. Our collaboration with each of you has well served the children of New Rochelle and, as such, there is little reason to adjust these allocations. On both a professional and personal level, I do understand the difficulty that many of you are going through in these difficult economic times. I hope that this explanation gives you a better understanding of why we cannot be more responsive to your requests for additional UPK seats.
Regards,
Jeff Korostoff
The numbers break down as follows:
493 children participating in half-day UPK programs in New Rochelle
Barnard School: 277
Collaborating Agencies (8): 216
2011-12 NYSED Allocation to New Rochelle school district: $1,450,654
The funds are used to fund this program for 4-year-olds. Each of the collaborating sites receives an allotment of $2,700 for each child served.
All local families who have applied in our Pre-K programs have been accommodated.
The End Game Will Be Full Taxpayer Support
As the State Funding continues to dry up, who do you think will foot the bill for this program ? Our “local” dollar share will continue to climb, just as the full day kindergarten costs have risen . What happens when the pre-k goes to full day ? The entitlement will grow to include any and all children who want to apply . That’s ok if the true costs are spelled out in the budget and the voter can make an informed decision but that won’t happen . Slowly , but , surely the program will grow in size and hours adding more and more burden to the “local” source . Next will be universal pre – pre – k , 3 year old program . At what point does it become just a subsidized day care program ? I have to pay for my own day care and I don’t bother the NR resident taxpayers to subsidize my family. Do you want to pay for someone else’s day care ?