Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. wants it. The state Board of Education wants it. Teachers and parents who've been involved in it sing its praises, and testing data bears them out.

But it remains to be seen whether a $7 million request to start an optional full-day kindergarten program targeted at children who need it most will pass muster with the state Legislature.

It's not that anyone's necessarily opposed to full-day kindergarten -- several districts across Utah offer the option and have reported strong results.

There are a lot of demands on education funding, however, even in a flush economic year -- simply keeping up with growing enrollment, personnel, health care and transportation costs is a significant challenge.

The answer could come as soon as this week, which is when the various appropriations committees are expect to rank which programs legislators want to fund.

There's also a bill by state Rep. Kory Holdaway, R-Taylorsville, that would establish the program. His legislation would target schools with the highest numbers of free and reduced price lunch recipients, an indicator used to identify at-risk students.

Representatives of the Box Elder and Salt Lake City school districts visited the public education appropriations subcommittee this week to make the case for all-day kindergarten, which is offered in both districts.

Testing data, both local and national, shows that children who attend full-day kindergarten class are better prepared to learn when they enter first grade -- and that readiness provides a boost well into their school career, said Jo Ellen Killpack of the Salt Lake district.

The kindergartners were evaluated in the fall and spring on tasks like letter and color identification, numbers and matching sounds with letters.

"We saw huge increases for kids in full-day kindergarten," Killpack said.

She said the additional instruction -- as well as investment in teacher training -- is especially valuable to children who have little exposure to learning at home.

"Kids that do not come from literacy-rich environments start out behind," said Killpack. "They come with vastly different literacy skills.

"We believe in early intervention rather than remediation."

One question that legislators had was whether those gains are sustainable, or whether the success rate would level off over time.

"We don't know that yet. We've only had one year of it," said Killpack. "They are holding those gains" and officials are confident that programs here will reflect the gains made nationally.

The presentation was valuable, said Rep. Jim Ferrin, R-Orem, who sits on the public education appropriations subcommittee.

"I found it persuasive," he said. "I can't say that it yet has persuaded me to one position or the other on it."

On the other hand, he said, he's reluctant to start telling districts what to do with their state education dollars, since local leaders usually have a fair amount of leeway in setting their own priorities.

"We're already appropriating everything we've got in the Uniform School Fund," he said. "For us to carve out additional dollars ... to fund all-day kindergarten means we're taking it from somewhere else."

Budget priorities will start taking shape this week, Ferrin added, so the fate of the all-day kindergarten proposal might be clearer then.

"We have only two more meetings left on the appropriations subcommittee, so whatever recommendation comes from the subcommittee is going to have to come next week," he said last week.

Sen. Karen Hale, D-Salt Lake City, said it's hard to predict what the appropriations process will yield. A lot will depend on how much money is allotted to committee members to budget -- although not being a committee priority wouldn't necessarily kill the proposal.

"I'm hoping it will be a high priority," she said, and noted that support from the governor and education officials could help quite a bit.

"The teachers in first grade are noticing huge differences when these kids come in," she said. "Some of these kids coming into kindergarten, some of them haven't even had experience holding a book."