N.H. is poised to offer kindergarten to all

Under a mandate from the Legislature, the school districts are setting up portable classrooms and adding furniture, computers, and other equipment, paid for with $3.5 million in state money, said Helen Schotanus, a state Department of Education consultant.

Oregon became the 49th state to require public kindergarten statewide in 1989, Schotanus said. Vermont adopted such a requirement in 1988. All Massachusetts school districts have been required to offer kindergarten for more than 30 years.

But in New Hampshire, offering kindergarten was purely a local option until two years ago, when lawmakers voted to force the last districts to offer 5-year-olds an education as part of a larger schools initiative.

The state’s reluctance to embrace this commonplace mandate stemmed in part, educators surmise, from the widespread availability of private schools in these districts, which, in some towns, served up to 95 percent of their kindergartners.

“I think it’s also part of that New Hampshire philosophy that really advocates local control,’’ said Milford Superintendent Robert Suprenant. “I don’t think it’s a case where people aren’t concerned about education or don’t value it.’’

And then there’s the fact that New Hampshire has never been quick to follow the lead of other states, even under great political pressure. New Hampshire became the last to recognize Martin Luther King Day in 1999 and to allow non-Christians to hold elected office (in 1877). It is still the only state that does not require adults to wear a seat belt.

For Schotanus, known by colleagues as Ms. Kindergarten, achieving statewide public kindergarten is the culmination of a multidecade crusade. When she began working for the state 23 years ago, less than half the 153 districts offered public kindergarten, she said.

“I think it was complacency and lack of knowledge about the positive effects of kindergarten’’ that made it take so long, said Schotanus. Legislators “have to think it’s worth paying for, and they didn’t. They thought most kids would take [private] kindergarten and their parents would pay for it.’’

State and local school officials said public kindergarten familiarizes students with school life, allows staff to diagnose learning disabilities earlier, and serves families that cannot spend several thousand dollars on private kindergarten.

“The ones that most need it usually can’t afford it,’’ Schotanus said. “Families that have young kids typically don’t have that type of disposable income.’’

The change has also had the effect of providing jobs in a down economy.

Caroline Sousa expected a challenge finding a new employer, after losing her first-grade teaching job in Manchester to budget cuts. But then Milford began preparing to offer kindergarten, and the 26-year-old found herself employed again.

“I was very fortunate, with all that is going on in the economy,’’ said Sousa, while preparing her classroom for the new school year. “To go from a district with budget cuts to a district starting a new program with all this new stuff is unbelievable.’’

Advocates faced battles along the way from people who viewed a requirement for public kindergarten as an unfunded state mandate that took control away from local voters.

“I personally am totally in favor of kindergarten,’’ said John B. Andrews, executive director of the New Hampshire Local Government Center, who pointed out that voters in most communities approved kindergarten voluntarily before the mandate. “But, I’m not in favor of unfunded state mandates. The issue is: Who’s going to pay for it?’’

The tide finally turned in 2007, when the Legislature, which turned Democratic the previous November, approved a bill defining what an adequate education entailed in New Hampshire and thereby what programs districts had to provide. It included kindergarten in that list.

The bill was a response to a court order stemming from a lawsuit over school funding in New Hampshire.

How that mandate is being fulfilled varies by district.

Lyndeborough will pay tuition to send its kindergartners to a private school in Milford, but the other districts starting programs this fall - Chester, Hudson, Litchfield, Mascenic Regional School District, Mason, Milford, Pelham, Salem, and Windham - will house kindergarten in existing rooms or portable classrooms.

The state will fund the setup and rental costs of the portables for three years and 75 percent of construction costs for permanent kindergarten classrooms, said Schotanus.

Some recent converts to public kindergarten say they are already seeing positive effects.

In the Timberlane Regional School District, which adopted public kindergarten two years ago, students are entering first grade with the ability to write the alphabet, some words, and form a simple story, said Kelli Killen, the district’s director of elementary education.

“Before, when kids would come into first grade, it was like trying to do kindergarten and first grade in one year,’’ Killen said.

Now, she said, “first-grade teachers have had to adjust their curriculums because the kids are coming with skills they didn’t have before.’’