By Jamie Taylor

The Merrill Area Public Schools Board of Education took another step toward starting a kindergarten program for 4-year olds last Wednesday when it approved the contract that area parochial schools and day care centers must enter into with MAPS to take part in the program which will start in the fall.

Having offsite locations is central to the program which the board and administration hopes will help combat declining enrollment in the district. While the district will have a limited number of spots in its own buildings for the youngsters, the cost savings of having partners in the community will help improve the benefits of the programs. An added benefit to this plan is that it could help make putting their four-year olds into day care centers more attractive to parents.

Rich Thwaits, who has spearheaded the steering committee exploring the 4K program, said the reaction from area day care centers and parochial schools has been guardedly optimistic. Organizers have had input every step of the way from both groups in shaping the program.

"It is truly indicative of the collaborative spirit that is alive in Merrill," he told the board. "They saw a need and worked together to meet it."

The contract governs such things as the approved curriculum the program will use, staffing issues and other "nuts and bolts" of the program’s operations. It was reviewed by the district’s legal counsel before it was presented to the board and they made some slight modifications to it before approving it by an 8-1 vote.

Board Member Loretta Baughan was the lone dissenter, saying she could not support the contract because it would force parochial schools to remove religious pictures and symbols from the rooms being used for the program under the contract’s provisions to separate church and state as much as possible. She also questioned if the board had even approved the program.

School Board President Jeff Verdoorn told Baughan that the funding for the program was included in the figures for the 2010-11 budget per an earlier board vote. The state aid the program would generate in future years has also been used in the district’s economic modeling.

"As long as there are no significant changes to the program we approved, it will go forward," Verdoorn said.

The Board will revisit the final vote only if the details change significantly in the month of February.

Baughan noted that MAPS already has the Head Start program for economically disadvantaged 4-year olds and that forcing parochial schools to change their curriculum to fit the needs of MAPS’ program wouldn’t be right. Bill Jaeger pointed out that Head Start can’t serve all the needs of area 4-year olds and finding space in MAPS buildings for all the students would also be impossible.

Once the contract was approved, Thwaits said it could now be presented to area day care centers and parochial schools for their governing boards to either approve or decline to participate. He said he could start hearing from some potential sites within the next week or two with enrollment scheduled to start around the end of the month for the pilot year of the program.