ROSINTON, Alabama — There’s no time for napping anymore in today’s kindergarten classrooms.

Students at Rosinton Elementary School and other kindergarten programs around the state still color and do other activities, but today’s students do much more.

“They come to us already knowing how to read, so there’s no more nap time (in kindergarten),” said Principal Andy Benton during a tour for elected officials held Friday at the school. “Our kindergarten students are reading and learning math and problem-solving skills, so the pre-K program is a big part of getting students started in the learning process.”

The tiny school in rural Baldwin County serves just over 300 students. With a little under 20 students in its pre-K program started in 2007, the school serves as a model for educators throughout the state, said Misty Blackmon with the Alabama Department of Early Childhood Education.

“We are constantly bringing school officials here from all over to show what a pre-K program can do,” Blackmon said.

Benton said the school welcomes about 40 new students every year, 18 of which are in the pre-K program. With additional funding, he said, the school could easily double that number.

Highlighting the strong demand for more high-quality pre-k classrooms, advocates from the Alabama School Readiness Alliance and its Pre-K Task Force joined lawmakers at six pre-k classrooms across the state for a tour and discussion on the First Class Pre-K program’s funding needs. ASRA hosted tours simultaneously in Birmingham, Dothan, Huntsville, Montgomery, Phenix City and Rosinton as part of the state’s Week of the Young Child observances.

The tours were part of an initiative, hosted by the First Class Pre-K program encouraging state lawmakers to support a historic $16 million pre-k expansion approved by the Alabama State Senate last week.

For nine-years in a row, Alabama’s First Class Pre-K program, which is managed by the Alabama Department of Early Childhood Education, has been ranked the No. 1 state-funded pre-kindergarten program in the country for quality. However, in the 2015-2016 school year, there are only enough classrooms statewide to reach 20 percent of all 4-year-olds.

If the Senate-passed version of the Fiscal Year 2017 Education Trust Fund Budget is signed into law, funding for the state’s pre-kindergarten program will increase from $48.5 million to $64.5 million.

Along with funding from year two of Alabama’s four-year federal Preschool Development Grant, the $16 million expansion would help open approximately 155 additional classrooms and help enroll approximately 2,800 more four-year-olds than the current school year. 

The ASRA Pre-K Task Force, which consists of 51 prominent leaders from the business, education, civic, medical, legal, philanthropic, military and child advocacy communities, first proposed expanding pre-k access to all families in 2012. That year the Task Force launched a ten-year campaign, now in its fourth year, to advocate for incremental increases to fully fund the program by the 2022-2023 school year.

The Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama analyzed student achievement through the 6th grade and found that First Class Pre-K alumni consistently outperformed their peers in reading and math. PARCA also found that First Class Pre-K closed the achievement gap for participating low-income students by 25 percent.

The Alabama State House of Representatives has already approved a similar, but different, version of the ETF Budget. Lawmakers from both chambers are now seeking to reconcile funding differences in a budget conference committee. A final budget is expected to be approved next week.

Times Independent Editor John Underwood contributed to this report submitted by the Alabama School Readiness Alliance Pre-K Task Force.