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Copyright © 2010 The Morning Call

ID: 4616726
Publication Date: June 10, 2010
Day: Thursday
Page: A1
Edition: FIFTH
Section: News
Type: Local
Dateline:
Column:
Length: medium

Byline: Christopher Baxter OF THE MORNING CALL

Headline: Reversal by Easton schools chief **Kindergarten program

must end, McGinley told state. Now, she's changed her mind.

The Easton Area School District will keep full-day kindergarten next
school year, a reversal by the superintendent, who had wanted to cut the
program and told the state it is "discriminatory" because it's offered at
only one school.

Superintendent Susan McGinley's about-face angered school directors,

who said Wednesday they didn't know she had decided to keep the
program until 10 minutes before Monday's board workshop. They also
said they did not understand her rationale for the change.

"It requires an explanation and that's the problem," Director Kerri

Leonard-Ellison said. "We're not getting an explanation."

McGinley in April applied to the state Department of Education to cut the

full-day program, as well as other programs that would result in 72 job
cuts. She told the school board that the grant that pays for the pilot
initiative was set to expire.

In a letter dated May 17 to the state, however, McGinley added that the
program should end because it is unfair and inequitable to offer it at only
one school, on Easton's South Side, when parents elsewhere in the district
would like the same opportunity.

"In essence," McGinley wrote, "offering this program only at Cheston

Elementary School is a discriminatory practice that needs to be
discontinued."

She added that, considering the economy, the district's ultimate plan of
expanding full-day kindergarten to the six other elementary schools would
be "unsustainable."

Despite her criticism, and without consulting the school board, McGinley
withdrew her request to cut the program. She said Wednesday that after
talking with education department officials, both sides agreed it's best to
keep full-day kindergarten at Cheston, and that the grant money will still
be available.

McGinley would not say if the full-day program would be expanded to

any of the other elementary schools next school year. There is no money
set aside for that in the budget.

Asked why she now supports the program she called discriminatory,
McGinley said: "We still are looking at what we can do because I want to
provide more equity for our students. That's something I have a great
concern about, and feel passionate about."

Among the options, McGinley said, are to keep the Cheston program,
expand the full-day program to Paxinosa Elementary School in Easton's
West Ward and join with a community group to involve parents more in
their children's early education.

But none of those ideas has been presented to the school board, and
McGinley could not say how the district would pay for them.

The letter she sent to the state, calling the lone full-day program
discriminatory, was obtained by The Morning Call as part of a request
made under the Right to Know Law for applications received by the
education department to change or eliminate programs that will result in
teachers losing their jobs.

The arguments administrators make in those applications are often

different from the ones they make to the public, The Morning Call
detailed in a story Monday, because of rules etched in the decades-old
Pennsylvania School Code barring teacher layoffs for financial reasons.

Also on Monday, the education department ruled Easton could proceed

with program changes that would eliminate 72 teaching jobs. The board is
expected to vote on the positions next week, despite already approving
next school year's $131.5 million budget built on the cuts.
Full-day kindergarten began at Cheston Elementary in the 2007-08 school
year as a pilot program intended to be expanded to all of the district's
elementary schools within three to five years.

The district chose Cheston because it had an extended-day program,

meaning some classrooms and teachers were already available. Cheston
also services economically disadvantaged students who would benefit the
most from more instructional time, Leonard-Ellison said.

But the program has not been expanded. Steve Furst, director of teaching
and learning, deferred comment about the full-day program to the district's
solicitor, Alan McFall. McFall said questions about the program would be
best answered by the administration.

School Director Kerry Myers, who represents Easton's South Side on the
school board, said he was "totally taken off guard" by McGinley's
statement that the full-day program was discriminatory.

"I'm stunned by that comment," Myers said. "She will have to explain to
me why she wrote that."

Director Jennifer Holzberger says she can understand the discrimination

argument, considering the district's own policies require programs to be
offered equitably across all schools. But she said she cannot understand
McGinley's new position.

"We are not in a position to expand the program to be equitable,"

Holzberger said. "So why [McGinley's] rationale has changed is beyond
me."

christopher.baxter@mcall.com

610-778-2283