What HAPPENED to a “Phased Approach”?

In her 2018 Candidate Statement Ms. Angela Penna stated:

“This topic has come up through the years, and in the latest presentation in March of this year, our professional team which included Mrs. Corley-Hand (MKM Principal) and Mrs. Gardner (Director of Special Services) laid out the educational case for full-day kindergarten. In their research, it was discovered that adding three hours of instruction to kindergarten allows for broader and deeper curriculum coverage, a variety of instructional groupings, and diagnosis and intervention of learning challenges. They also found that only 6% of districts in NJ provide only half-day kindergarten, as we currently do. Not just as a parent but also as a Realtor, I feel full-day kindergarten makes sense in our district. The bigger question is, how do we implement it in a way that doesn’t have a severe impact to our budget and to our taxpayers. There-fore, the option of a phased approach starting with a Pilot for 2020 is appealing to me.

A full-paid implementation for all kindergarten students in 2020 entails significant changes to our current infrastructure and may even impact building assignments for current 2-5 grade students. I feel the Pilot is a more prudent approach that would allow our administrators and teachers to learn from a smaller sample of students, and work out any issues that may arise, before deploying such a significant change to all kindergarten students.” (source)

That was three years ago before Ms. Penna voted for full implementation of FDK after a highly compromised pilot along with Reconfiguration and Redistricting. Ms. Penna’s justification for voting “yes” did not reference results from the Pilot. That makes sense, given the impact of COVID. 

Remember, the Berkeley Heights Board of Education voted to postpone FDK (just FDK) in late 2020 for the 2022/2023 school year only to announce its implementation for 2021/2022 just a few months later, in February of 2021. Residents found out soon after that reconfiguration and redistricting came with the deal.

Her candidate statement promotes a cautious and considered approach, so one has to wonder what caused Ms. Penna to vote for a plan that forced all three changes with little to no on-the-ground data or research to support it. Recently the District decided to move 50 teachers in another blindside; many teachers will be in buildings and teaching grade levels they may not be familiar with. 

Most parents expected that this year would focus on remediating the impact of COVID on the student population’s educational experience; what they got was another potentially problematic school year facing their children head-on.