Community Messages

While Olentangy has achieved academic excellence for a number of years, we are always striving to provide our students with every opportunity for even greater success. The concept of all-day, every-day kindergarten is a solid one and we have considered this option for our students a number of times in the past. However, it is important to note that while we experience tremendous growth at the kindergarten level – in recent years we’ve experienced a net growth of between 50-70 students each year – most of these students are reading when they complete our current program. The reality we face at Olentangy is that all-day kindergarten poses significant challenges, both financially and in facilities, for our district.

In less than 20 years, Olentangy has grown from just one school building to 20 and, unfortunately, the burden of funding this growth has rested largely with our taxpayers. Our district receives no financial assistance for buildings from the Ohio School Facilities Commission. Further, just 7.64 percent of our own general fund budget comes to us from the state. When you consider that Olentangy’s growth is the largest in Ohio, and that we receive very little in financial support from the state, you understand why the district has had to go to the taxpayers seven times in the past 10 years. While I’m proud that our community has been supportive of all these issues, our district has the responsibility of ensuring that we implement the state’s mandates in a cost-effective manner.

Olentangy’s Development Committee has estimated that implementing an all-day, every-day kindergarten program would require an additional 37 classrooms. This translates to about $30 million in construction costs alone; we would also need to hire additional teachers, purchase classroom materials and develop an appropriate curriculum for the new program. As in the past, these expenses would be passed directly to the taxpayers.

Following discussions with State Superintendent Deborah Delisle, I believe Olentangy will be eligible for at least a one-year waiver, and possibly the opportunity for gradual implementation of the all-day kindergarten program. In this way, we could ease the burden on our taxpayers and provide the necessary planning and construction time for the district.

The bottom line is that Olentangy Local Schools is supportive of an all-day kindergarten program, but we need time and money to implement this program in a responsible way for our students and our community.