Three Kirkland elementary schools will have all-day kindergarten fully paid for through state funding beginning in September. The funding will also be extended to all the Lake Washington School District elementaries by the start of 2016-2017 school year.

Robert Frost Elementary, John Muir Elementary, and Rose Hill Elementary were selected as the first schools in LWSD to receive the funding for the 2015-2016 school year for all-day kindergarten as part of the recent budget passed by the state legislature. It also included full funding for all-day kindergarten in all public schools in the 2016-17 school year. Parents can still have their children attend all-day kindergarten in the other elementary schools, but they will still pay for the second half of the school day. By the 2016-2017 academic year, state funding will cover the entire cost.

School district spokesperson Kathryn Reith said that the LWSD has been preparing for the changes for several years while the state focused on funding all-day kindergarten in 2007-08, concentrating on less affluent districts.

“They have been rolling this out slowly over time and each time adding a few more schools,” Reith said. “When it started out it was a small percentage of schools and the schools had a high level of poverty.”

This academic year, around 72 percent of kindergarten students statewide will be eligible for state funded all-day kindergarten.

While they anticipated the funding for the handful of elementary schools that qualified, the additional appropriations for all the schools next year was unexpected.

“It was a huge surprise,” she said. “Obviously it’s great for some of our parents expecting to either not have all-day kindergarten available for their students or have to pay. We’ve been looking forward to all-day kindergarten for all students.”

Advocates of all-day kindergarten claim that it offers an opportunity for students to improve in subjects such as reading and mathematics. John Muir Elementary Principal Jeff DeGallier described the all-day kindergarten funding as having a “profoundly positive impact on our earliest learners” and will help them meet the “high expectations we have for academic achievement in our district.”

“Early childhood education is the key to setting these children on a trajectory toward academic success,” he said.

“The return on that investment is staggering when you actually look at the outcomes years from now,” said Rep. Larry Springer.

He also said that it helps improve a student’s earning potential as an adult and lowers the likelihood of substance abuse. Springer added that the funding for all-day kindergarten is a part of the legislature’s efforts to lower class sizes for K-3.

“We’ve been trying for the last three or four years, but it’s been a struggle, especially since the recession,” he said.

However, the improvements weren’t enough for the Washington State Supreme Court. Last week, all nine justices voted to issue daily fines of $100,000 until the state legislature complies with the provisions of the McCleary case concerning funding for K-12 education.

“It doesn’t come as any great surprise to me,” Springer said. “It’s frustrating in the sense that many of us would argue, myself included, that in reality we have not made a large enough investment in K-12 to be where we should be, given the McCleary decision, but the reality remains that we’ve got another budget year before we have to get there. It’s a little frustrating that they would find cause to fine when they said you have until 2018.”

State Sen. Andy Hill, who chairs the Senate budget committee, called the Supreme Court’s announcement a “head-scratcher,” wondering how the state can fine itself. He added that the court is overlooking the spending increase in K-12 education in the latest budget, the largest in decades.

“Frankly, I think the supreme court got it wrong,” he said.

Hill said the court is overlooking the progress being made by the legislature, such as the all-day kindergarten funding and the class reductions for K-3, which he said received strong bi-partisan support. He is also confident the legislature will be able to meet their education spending goals for 2018.

“I want to fix our education system and make it fair and equitable,” he said.  “We’ve made great strides in the last few years.”

In anticipation of district-wide funding, Reith said they plan to hire 15 more kindergarten teachers and will need seven more kindergarten classrooms districtwide. Schools with only one section of half day kindergarten won’t require additional classrooms because the room is already reserved for the half day class, according to Reith.

However, Reith added that many schools already have a high percentage of students in all-day kindergarten. In the 2014-15 academic year, LWSD had seven elementary schools with two sections of half day kindergarten. The rest were in all-day kindergarten. All other elementary schools had only one section of half day kindergarten. Reith said that the schools most impacted by all-day kindergarten will be those schools with multiple sections of half-day kindergarten. In Kirkland, Mark Twain Elementary, Lakeview Elementary and Carl Sandburg Elementary all had two half-day classes last year.

For these schools, Reith said, the only change will be that instead of the parents writing the check the district will furnish the funds.

“It’s very popular in our district, so we already have quite a few,” she said. “The difference would be who’s paying for it. Right now, the teachers are already teaching all day, the state is paying for half the day, and the parents are paying the other half.”