POULSBO — With next year’s school schedules currently being created, the North Kitsap School District is hoping to determine how many parents of preschoolers are interested in all-day kindergarten.

Mounds of early childhood education research have hailed the benefits of the full-day program.

The NKSD agrees, and for the past eight years has been offering the option for about 100 students in five different classes throughout the district.

Now it wants to expand.

Next year, with the NKSD’s grade level transition from a K-6 (elementary), 7-9 (junior high), 10-12 (high school) format to a K-5 (elementary), 6-8 (middle school), 9-12 (high school) system, there will be more classroom space available for those interested in all-day kindergarten.

“We want to know how many parents are interested so we can assess how many classrooms we will need,” said NKSD executive director of teaching and learning MaryLou Murphy. Presently, the all-day kindergarten classes are offered at Wolfle, Suquamish, Gordon, Breidablik and Vinland schools. “These five (current classrooms) have been full pretty much every year.”

With classrooms expected to open at both Poulsbo and Pearson elementary schools next year, the NKSD hopes even more students will be able to participate in the all-day experience.

For parents, that experience will cost about $3,000 per year. A limited number of full or partial scholarships “may” be available for qualifying families, according to an NKSD press release.

As with many Washington elementary schools, the state only funds kindergarten for a half a day in North Kitsap. The NKSD’s anticipated tuition will cover the remainder.

In Gov. Chris Gregiore’s 2007 budget proposal there is money tagged to provide funds for full-day programs, however, that funding will be going to the schools with the largest free and reduced lunch populations — none will be coming to the NKSD.

Still Murphy said, “All of our kids at the age of 5 could benefit from an all-day experience … all of them.”

The Bremerton School District has provided an example to that end. In this, its first year of providing a full-day program to all of its estimated 500 kindergarten students, BSD director of special programs Linda Sullivan-Dudzic said they have seen student gains that have doubled since last year. Additionally, they have been nationally recognized for their work.

Students, in Bremerton’s program are already beginning to read and write at the same level this year in February as those in the half day program were at the end of school last year. And it’s provided at no cost to parents.

“There’s no extra money coming in, we just had to make it a priority,” Sullivan-Dudzic said. “This is the only time in (a student’s) academic career that you can double the amount of instruction without forfeiting something else.”

Murphy agreed, noting that the biggest benefit of a full-day program is the extra time allowed for student practice. Not to mention that those students in the full-day program also become more acclimated to how school days function.

“They are more school savvy, they really know the system,” she said.