Akron Public Schools releases plan for 16 full-day prekindergarten classrooms this fall

Akron Public Schools will offer 16 full-day prekindergarten classes this fall, the district announced Wednesday night in the first overview of the plan to help support early literacy.

The district will also continue to offer 17 classrooms of half-day pre-K for parents who prefer that option.

"Literacy is something that we have to take very seriously," Superintendent Michael Robinson said in the meeting. "And data shows that when we focus on what children are doing in pre-K, early childhood, it certainly helps them to strengthen their academic performance, and they become a better scholar or a better reader."

The total number of pre-K classrooms will increase by two, from 31 currently to 33 in the fall.

Because half of those will be full-day classes now, that will drop the total number of individual pre-K classes in the district from 62 to 50.

But Chief of Staff Angela Carter said the district hasn't utilized all its existing seats well, leaving many seats open, so the expectation is enrollment will still increase. The district currently has about 400 students in pre-K classes. Another 300 are in preschool. Pre-K is for 4-year-olds the year before kindergarten. Preschool is for 3-year-olds.

There is not an exact number of seats available, Carter said, because it will depend on who registers. The district has to offer seats to children with disabilities, and children with multiple or significant disabilities require smaller class environments that will limit the number of seats available in that class.

The maximum number of seats in a pre-K class would be 18. Right now, the district averages just under seven students per class.

Carter said the plan is for the district to move entirely to full-day pre-K in the following years.

The district will spend about $270,000 for the four additional staff members and two extra classrooms. It will also cost about $90,000 to continue to keep Essex Early Learning Center open, which the board voted Wednesday night to do.

The full-day classes will be spread out across the district at community learning centers in each cluster. Currently, 12 locations offer pre-K, but the goal is to get to 18, the district said in an announcement after Wednesday's meeting.

Research has shown having students in prekindergarten for a full school day instead of just a morning or afternoon can have a substantial academic and social impact. One study from Denver of 600 students in half-day and full-day classes showed that the longer day "produced substantial, positive effects on children’s receptive vocabulary skills."

"Among children enrolled in district schools, full-day participants also outperformed their peers on teacher-reported measures of cognition, literacy, math, physical, and socioemotional development," the study said. "At kindergarten entry, children offered full day still outperformed peers on a widely used measure of basic literacy."

Akron made significant strides in early literacy last year, as shown on the district's report card. The district improved from having just 40% of third graders testing proficient to almost 45%.

The district also adopted two new reading curriculums last year that focus on the science of reading, a philosophy of teaching that focuses on how the human brain learns to read.

The science of reading has a structured, building-block approach, starting with awareness of sounds and letters, and explicit, direct instruction from the teacher to students about how to break down a word to figure out how it sounds and then what it means.

Registration for pre-K will open March 25 with the district's regular registration process. More information can be found at akronschools.com/enrollment.

Contact education reporter Jennifer Pignolet at jpignolet@thebeaconjournal.com, at 330-996-3216 or on Twitter @JenPignolet.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: APS releases plan for 16 full-day pre-K classrooms this fall