Port Chester school officials are restoring full-day kindergarten to the budget plan for next year, after threatening a switch to half-day to meet the tax cap. The district has found alternative savings for 2012-13 in the form of a health-insurance change for civil service employees. It will also scale back on non-mandated reading assistance throughout the district, a change that will require up to 14 teacher layoffs.
Parents and teachers have been pushing to save full-day kindergarten and avoid a shutdown of the Early Learning Center, a building for kindergarteners and first-graders and a part of the John F. Kennedy Magnet School. The lobby effort has included a letter-writing campaign for more state aid.
The district’s CSEA employees – 154 teacher aides, custodians, clerical employees and nurses – will receive only one health plan at current reimbursement rates instead of a choice of three. The administrators union has agreed to the same change under its new contract agreement.
Thursday night’s meeting starts at 7:30 in the Port Chester Middle School auditorium.
