BERNARDS — Parents in Bernards Township needed just four weeks to raise nearly a half-million dollars for the district’s endangered full-day kindergarten program. The local board of education tonight unanimously accepted a $420,000 donation that was raised to save the program, which had been on the chopping block for the next school year because of a projected budget gap. In...
BERNARDS — Parents in Bernards Township needed just four weeks to raise nearly a half-million dollars for the district’s endangered full-day kindergarten program.
The local board of education tonight unanimously accepted a $420,000 donation that was raised to save the program, which had been on the chopping block for the next school year because of a projected budget gap.
In November, school officials decided to reduce the full-day program to 2½ hours each school day, an idea that had some parents worried about the impact on their children.
"Samuel’s already reading, doing math," parent Adam Hecht said of his 6-year-old son, who attends Cedar Hill School. "It’s more than just playing with building blocks. They really are learning stuff."
Parents were told by school officials last month that they could save the full-day program if they raised $420,000 — the amount the district expected to save by reducing the program next year.
Given a Jan. 21 deadline, Hecht, a 46-year-old physician, and his wife set up the Bernards Township Public School Initiative and began a feverish fundraising drive. From Dec. 22 to Jan. 16, they raised $420,000 from 438 people, Hecht said.
The donation is expected to save eight of the district’s 16 kindergarten teaching positions, he said.
Ethan Green, a 7-year-old first-grader at the Mount Prospect Elementary School, contributed $64 from his personal savings to the fundraising effort. "I wanted all the kindergartners to learn as much as I did when I was in kindergarten," Ethan said tonight.