All-day kindergarten coming to Twin Falls this fall

TWIN FALLS, Idaho (KMVT/KSVT) — In early March, the Idaho Senate approved legislation to boost reading skills among young students by allocating $73 million to the school districts across the state.

“Schools have the option (of) how they want to use it, some schools will use it for full day kindergarten and others won’t,” said Lance Clow, who is the chairman of the house education committee.

The Twin Falls School District has decided to use their money to begin full day kindergarten in the fall of this year, and they say for them it was a no-brainer.

“Huge benefits for us to hit those foundational skills pretty hard, and I like the idea that we can still keep the option for those families who don’t want to send their kids to school full time, yet,” said Jennie Peterson, the director of elementary programs at Twin Falls School District.

And for the parents as well, finding a babysitter or daycare can be tricky if they only go to school for a half day. This option will be available in all Twin Falls Elementary Schools beginning in the fall.

Lance Clow, who was instrumental in the passing of this bill, says the main idea is to improve literacy in kids across the board.

“My involvement was to try and make the expense of money, the money that was going to be spent for kindergarten, as effective as possible with the primary goal of getting our reading levels for our third graders up to proficient as soon as possible,” Clow said.

And what you learn in kindergarten is vital to the rest of your school career.

“Learning how to identify letters, words, sounds and also numbers, being able to start blending words together, all of those core foundational skills that our children need to know to move forward,” said Peterson.

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