By VINAYA SAKSENA

PAWTUCKET — A larger-than-expected demand for the service has prompted the school committee to hire three new teachers for its all-day kindergarten program.

The vote was made at the committee’s meeting Monday night, after the school department noticed greater kindergarten enrollment than was expected at the beginning of the year, according to Superintendent of Schools Hans Dellith. In fact, Dellith said the department is now looking to hire a fourth teacher for this purpose, with that teacher’s hire to be approved at the school committee’s next meeting. He added that the fourth new teacher would likely be the next candidate in line, and thus could happen very soon.
“Today, we determined that we need one more,” Dellith said. “We’ve been interviewing, and we feel very confident in the next person.”
The first three new teachers actually started work on Monday, Dellith said. All of the new positions are full-time, he said. The need for the new positions was attributed to greater demand for public school kindergarten in the city, which some have speculated is due at least in part to the closing of St. Leo the Great, the Catholic parochial school.
Committee member John Baxter said the new teachers will be working at the Henry J. Winters Elementary School, Nathanael Greene Elementary School and Curvin McCabe Elementary School. The program, he said, was not introduced at the Flora S. Curtis Elementary School and Potter Burns Elementary School, due to the limited funding available for the purpose.
He pointed out that the all-day kindergarten program was paid for with federal Title I funds.
“Because of the (limited) money, we were only able to open all-day kindergarten in so many schools,” Baxter explained. “We were going to do it without any increase to the taxpayers, and thus far, we’ve been able to do that.”