Five girls sit at a table discussing princesses as they color pictures of ball gowns.

Across the room, a group of boys put together Legos, and other students pair off or play by themselves with building blocks, cars, dolls or computer games.

It's a common afternoon in Stephanie Hoyt's kindergarten classroom at Myhre Elementary School, where students spend time choosing what they want to play.

"A lot of our structured activities are in the morning," Hoyt said.

She tends to alternate a structured activity like math and science, with playtime and music, art and physical education in the afternoon.

Across town, in Gail Towne's kindergarten class at Northridge Elementary School, students gather on the floor in front of the orange wingback chair. There Towne reads them a book, teaches them about money and gives them directions on their piggy bank assignment. The students alternate time between their desks and in "circle time" in front of the orange chair.

Just as in Hoyt's classroom, they get a little playtime before heading to physical education class, music or art. In Towne's class, they spend time operating a pizza parlor or ice cream shop.

"It works on social skills; please, thank you, what to do if you do not get your order," Towne said. Everyone gets a turn during the week.

Hoyt and Towne's classes each have 19 students, and they teach the same curriculum. The difference is the amount of time they spend with the students each day. Hoyt teaches all-day kindergarten and Towne teaches two half-day kindergarten classes.

All-day, every-day kindergarten is available at Riverside, Will-Moore and Myhre elementary schools, and all-day, every-other-day at Moses, Murphy, Pioneer, Prairie Rose and Solheim elementary schools. Murphy also offers half-day kindergarten, and the remainder of the elementary schools have half-day kindergarten only.

The Bismarck School District is preparing for all-day kindergarten in the event the Legislature funds all-day kindergarten. Currently, the state supports kindergarten at half-time. Senate Bill 2013 would allow for full-time funding. Districts would receive the same funding for all-day, every-day kindergarten students as they do for other elementary students. Currently, they receive half the amount.

The legislation does not make kindergarten mandatory. Parents can choose if they want their children to attend kindergarten. School districts also can choose if they want to offer kindergarten, but cannot deny kindergarten to students if they don't offer it, according to North Dakota Century Code.

"If one parent requests it, we have to provide it, or pay the tuition" of a half-time program, Bismarck Superintendent Paul Johnson said.

The bill was passed by the Senate 46 to 1 and the House referred it to the appropriations committee Feb. 21.

The current funding supports half-time kindergarten and all-day, every-other-day kindergarten. The all-day, every-day programs are funded with federal grant money, such as Title I money or Reading First money. Title I is a program for schools with high percentage of low-income families or they are children who qualify for assistance, such as English language learners, minority students, special needs students, American Indian students and students with low reading achievement. Reading First is a grant program for early literacy development.

This change could mean more classrooms and teachers for the district, and an academic edge for students entering first grade.

"We're looking at ways to improve student performance," said Bismarck assistant superintendent Rick Buresh.

No Child Left Behind, a federal law aimed at increasing educational accountability through higher test scores, is increasing the demands of kindergarten. When they enter first grade, they are expected to know how to read and know about math and science.

All Bismarck Public Schools kindergarten teachers are teaching the same curriculum.

"The difference is the time we put into it and for the kids to practice the stuff," Hoyt said.

In Towne's half-day class, she takes an interdisciplinary approach to get through the kindergarten standards in the time she has with her students. One lesson might include writing and math, such as a lesson she did with her students recently with money. The students cut out piggy bank drawings, identified coins, colored the coins different colors and wrote their names on the piggy banks.

More than half of kindergarten students nationwide are in all-day kindergarten, according to a compilation of research by Patricia Clark for the Education Resource Information Center Digest, a U.S. Department of Education database of education journals and other education material.

Districts that have gone to full-day kindergarten are showing gains in student achievement. In North Dakota, Grand Forks, Devils Lake and New Town have all-day kindergarten. Grand Forks showed increases in reading abilities; Devils Lake showed increases in kindergarten and fourth-grade literacy skills; and New Town showed increases in state assessment results, according to testimony by Grand Forks Superintendent Mark Sanford in support of legislation for all-day kindergarten funding.

"I'd hate to see them rush into it because the money is available," Hoyt said. She would like to see a carefully planned approach to implementing all-day kindergarten in the district.

It will be up to the school board how quickly Bismarck moves on all-day kindergarten. The Bismarck School Board supports the bill providing funding. Teachers see it being difficult to move ahead for the 2007-08 school year because families are already enrolling in kindergarten.

Space is what is keeping many districts from being able to make the move swiftly. Bismarck, Dickinson and Mandan all need more space for kindergarten classrooms if they went forward with all-day kindergarten.

Bismarck would need 12 to 13 classrooms, as well as teachers, if it moves to all-day kindergarten based on 800 kindergarten students. It would need more space at Centennial, Grimsrud, Miller, Murphy, Northridge and Pioneer elementary schools. Highland Acres, Moses, Prairie Rose, Roosevelt, Saxvik and Solheim have room for additional sections.

It would cost about $1.1 million. This could be covered by additional foundation aid, if the Legislature passes funding for all-day kindergarten. The legislation would give districts the same foundation aid for a kindergarten student as other elementary-age students, instead of the current half-payment per kindergarten student.

"Once it is effective, it will put us in a room crunch," Mandan Superintendent Wilfred Volesky said about expanding to all-day kindergarten.

The district has about 12 sections of kindergarten, including one all-day section at Fort Lincoln Elementary School.

Dickinson also is in need of additional classrooms for when it moves to all-day kindergarten. It currently has nine half-day sections. The move to all-day kindergarten would leave two schools one classroom short, and the other schools at capacity.

"If I put them at capacity in the other schools, I will not have room to give, if I need it for anything," Dickinson Superintendent Paul Stremick said. There wouldn't be room for an additional section in other grades, for example.

Dickinson talked with parents and other community members at two forums the first week of March. Support is there for all-day kindergarten, Stremick said. The district floated plans for housing the extra classrooms of kindergarten, and sought comments. Some of the ideas are moving all or some of the kindergartners into one of the schools, or moving the sixth-graders into a school of their own.

"Why we started the discussion now, is if we waited for April, we would not have time for anything to be in place for August," he said.

At a Bismarck community forum in February, participants were less supportive of all-day kindergarten than the Dickinson residents. They were split evenly on whether to offer it. For every person who thought it provided an advantage for the student, someone thought it was subsidized day care or too long to be in school for some students.

In Bismarck, if a child is attending a school with a full-day program, parents can opt for them to attend half-time, Buresh said.

"It lasts a couple weeks, a month, then they stay a full day," he said.

The all-day, every-other-day program gives students some of the same benefits as all-day, every-day kindergarten by having the students in class all day, but it has its drawbacks.

"Inconsistency is hard," Moses kindergarten teacher Debi Ahmann said. "I don't see the growth as quickly."

Ahmann has spent four years teaching kindergarten on an alternating schedule. She has a class that meets Monday, Wednesday and an alternating Friday and a Tuesday, Thursday and alternating Friday.

The all-day schedule works well for parents who work, she said, but the alternating schedule, combined with school breaks can make for large gaps. With the spring break, for example, her classes won't see her for nine days.

"One thing, is I expect parents to do more," Ahmann said. "I ask them to please practice words and reading."

This is because of the gaps in time with her lessons. If she is teaching them a letter, it helps if they follow up at home, she said.

Ahmann supports the district moving to all-day, every day kindergarten. It gives students a chance to learn the routines of school, like the lunch line, and participate in activities like music programs, she said.

Hoyt's kindergarten students at Myhre are more a part of the school because they go to afternoon assemblies and eat lunch at school, she said.

"They get to go to the library and gym and do so much by being there," Hoyt said.

It takes students about six weeks to get used to the all-day schedule, Hoyt and Ahmann said.

Whether a district offers half-day in addition to full-day could be up to the district. Bismarck would move toward all kindergarten classrooms being all-day, every-day, while in Dickinson, it could be both.

"Kindergarten is not mandatory," Stremick said. "They could choose zero to 100 percent."

(Reach reporter Sara Kincaid at 250-8251 or sara.kincaid@;bismarcktribune.com.)