With 30 students now enrolled in Albert Lea’s Kinder-Express option, administrators are saying first-year enrollment met expectations.

Friday, August 27, 1999

With 30 students now enrolled in Albert Lea’s Kinder-Express option, administrators are saying first-year enrollment met expectations.

Kinder-Express provides an additional half-day learning environment and is intended to supplement the district’s half-day kindergarten curriculum.

The fee-based program is administered by the Albert Lea Family Y and will start Thursday when kindergarten students report to school.

&uot;We were expecting to have at least one site,&uot; said Dennis Dieser. &uot;We have two. Personally, I think it’s going fine. We have everything in place. … We have our staff in place.&uot;

The two sites are at Lakeview and Sibley elementary schools. Students at the Sibley site attend kindergarten in the mornings and Kinder-Express in the afternoons.

The times are reversed at Lakeview with some students bussed from other Albert Lea elementary schools to both sites. But if there’s more interest, organizers would consider opening another site.

&uot;If there’s a need we will try to meet it,&uot; Community Education Director Heidi Cunningham said. &uot;If people sign up in mid year, we can also look at additional sites.&uot;

She said more parents might also decide to enroll their children into the program during Monday and Tuesday’s elementary school parent and teacher conferences.

Administrators plan to post notices of Kinder-Express at Lakeview during the conferences because that school wasn’t initially offered as a site.

&uot;People would prefer to have it where their student goes to school,&uot; she said. &uot;We could now have some more at Lakeview who sign up once people realize we have it there.&uot;

She said the district plans to collaborate with other agencies to offer Kinder-Express as a current substitute for all-day kindergarten.

&uot;Hopefully, this will help a lot until we get funding for all-day kindergarten,&uot; she said. &uot;We’re ready to roll.&uot;