The 2025-26 school year will be the first for all-day schooling for incoming kindergarteners, the Cornwall-Lebanon School District has announced.
District superintendent Philip Domencic explained over the phone that the district has been considering all-day kindergarten for several years. He said that while they have felt it is the next step for a while, the district wanted to ensure everything was accounted for when it took the leap.
“There’s a lot of pieces to this puzzle, working with our staff to align all the educational aspects of this,” Domencic said.
Domencic cited benefits of all-day kindergarten as including more time for teaching, more language acquisition, previewing learning skills, more specials (instruction on non-core subjects like library, music, and gym), reading, and working with peers and learning social skills.
For the 5-year-olds in kindergarten, education looks different than it does for older students. Kids are given more breaks, learn through play and crafts, and are taught on-level.
“Anytime you look at young learners, instruction and teaching is different than it is at the secondary levels,” Domencic explained. “Our teachers are very skilled at looking at what learning looks like.”
Cornwall-Lebanon will not be increasing class size to make this change, Domencic said, but will hire additional personnel to accommodate more classes. He said that process began in the late fall.
In addition to educational benefits, Domencic said all-day kindergarten provides young children with access to school breakfast and lunch.
He says the district has heard from parents who have difficulties finding half-day childcare for their young children, which he says the change will alleviate.
Domencic asks parents of kindergarten-aged students to review the registration page on the district’s website and enroll online. Parents will also be sent relevant information by mail.
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