Full-Day Kindergarten

The Nevada State Education Association supports full-day kindergarten for all of Nevada’s children; it is a strong and effective foundation upon which a quality education should be built.

• Full-day kindergarten gives teachers more time for curriculum planning, incorporating a greater number of thematic units in the school year, and offering more in-depth coverage of each unit.
• Full-day kindergarten is less stressful and frustrating for children because they have time to develop interests and activities more fully.
• An independent study, conducted in 2003 by West Education, found that full-day kindergarten contributes to increased school readiness, leads to higher academic achievement, improves student attendance, supports literacy and language development, benefits children socially and emotionally, and decreases future costs by reducing retention and remediation rates.  The results of the study were used by the governor of Arizona to justify the implementation of full-day kindergarten.
• Though the initial cost might be higher than half-day kindergarten it saves money in the long run.  Full-day kindergarten can lower grade retention and drop-out rates.
• Full-day kindergarten enables teachers to assess students’ needs and abilities more effectively, leading to early intervention.
• Full-day kindergarten teachers have the opportunity to get to know their students much better.  They are able to develop a richer understanding of students’ needs and, in turn, to develop activities and lessons to meet those needs.
• A 2000 study published by the National Center for Educational Statistics found that after the second year of a full-day kindergarten program, 100 percent of full-day parents and 72 percent of half-day parents noted that, if given the opportunity again, they would have chosen full-day kindergarten for their child.
• A study of one district in Indiana found that students who attended full-day kindergarten received significantly higher basic test scores in third, fifth and seventh grades than students who attended half-day or did not attend kindergarten at all.