It might not be long before voluntary half-day kindergarten becomes an all-day ordeal.

The State House of Representatives signed off on a bill Monday 43-29 that would give school districts and parents the option of sending their 5-year-olds away for a full day of reading, writing and arithmetic for a state cost of $7 million.

Rep. Kory Holdaway, R-Taylorsville, said the bill is a crucial aide for students who have a great need for additional instruction.

"We can pay for the students up front ... or we can pay for it later on," Holdaway said during floor debate.

The bill targets students who attend Title I schools, which are labeled as such because more than 50 percent of their students qualify for free or reduced lunches. Those schools would receive funding before any others. Holdaway has said many of the students attending Title I schools do not get sufficient opportunities to learn before kindergarten begins, and then fall behind.

School districts would administer and coordinate the programs with funding received from the state. At least 50 percent of the students in full-day kindergarten classes would have to have scored below standard on a kindergarten readiness assessment.

Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. spoke in support of such a bill in his address to the state earlier this year. He said funding alone was not enough to make the state's children competitive in the future.

But some representatives fear full-day kindergarten would become the norm, lowering the age at which children will be pulled out of their homes. They counter Holdaway's argument that full-day kindergarten is voluntary by saying that many people don't even know that half-day kindergarten is currently voluntary.

"In our society we continually compress life into a shorter and shorter period of time," said Rep. John Mathis, R-Vernal. "Let kids be kids."

During floor debate, Rep. Margaret Dayton, R-Orem, proposed a mock amendment to lower the age at which students could not attend full-day kindergarten to 3.

"At what point do we say too young is too youngfi" she asked. "I'm speaking for families having control of these young children."

The bill will now move onto the Senate.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A7.