Spencer School Board approves four-day 4K starting in 2025
By Valorie Brecht As has been the trend in several school districts around the area, the Spencer School District has decided to switch from a two-day-per-week four-year-old kindergarten (4K) program to four days per week. The new schedule will take effect in the 2025-26 school year.
Elementary Principal Eddie Ikert brought the issue to the board’s attention at the July 17 school board meeting, stating the board had discussed the issue before but never actually acted upon it.
“We were hoping to have this approved at the next school board meeting so we would have plenty of time to plan. The overall consensus I got from when we last talked about this was to hold off this year, but move to implement it for the 2025-26 school year,” he said.
The school currently has two cohorts of 4K students, with one group meeting for the full day on Mondays and Wednesdays and the other on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Under the four-day-per-week model, there will be two classrooms of students operating simultaneously, with one full-time teacher and one aide in each room.
Ikert said there were 36 students registered for 4K this year, and he expected two to five more.
“All of our grades are right around 40 students,” he said. If numbers stayed the same next year, that would equal about 20 children per classroom.
School board members debated offering Friday childcare free for 4K students.
“I think our plan is good, but I think Friday is something we need to offer up,” said board member Barb Wesle.
“I don’t know that you’d have to offer anything besides Rookie Rockets (the school’s childcare program),” said 4K teacher Kristy Ehlers. “I think we have about five to six kids in each section now who are going on opposite days, so it’s not a huge amount.”
“Offering it free would create more probably, because people are more likely to choose that option,” said Ikert.
He said the school district could put a question on the 4K registration form for parents to indicate if they were going to have their students attend childcare on Fridays, and the cost, so the school could get an idea how much of an influx of kids it would be.
“From a staffing standpoint, we reduced a middle school FTE (full-time equivalent) this year, so it’s not like we’d be adding on another,” said District Administrator Jason Gorst.
Ikert said there had also been talk of mixing in the early childhood teacher position to help with 4K, and putting 24-25 students in one class and 15-16 in the other.
“That’s inconsistent though because some years you have lots of students with high needs and come years you don’t,” he said. “So that’s probably not the best option.”
“We still talked about trying to utilize the early childhood teacher also (even with two full-time teachers) and bringing them in more,” said Ehlers.
Ikert said the school district also was working on a plan for reshuffling the rooms and would have room for another section of 4K.
“If they move into the fourth grade room, it would take some discussion and funding, because we would need storage in there,” he said.
He said he and the rest of the staff would use the upcoming school year to work through logistics.
Becky Gorst made a motion, seconded by Wesle, to approve a four-day 4K program for the 2025-26 school year. That was approved unanimously.
Spencer follows in the footsteps of the Loyal and Granton school districts, which both switched from a two-day to four-day program starting with the 2022-23 school year. The Greenwood School District’s program also runs four full days per week.
