Even as almost every municipality in the state has opted to cover tuition for public kindergarten, the South Shore has been slow to follow suit. Of the 14 public school districts in the state that still charge tuition for full-day kindergarten this past school year, nine are in Norfolk or Plymouth counties.
According to a report by Strategies for Children, a nonprofit focused on early childhood education policy, Duxbury, Hanover, Hingham, Norwell and Cohasset were some of the few towns that continue to charge residents for full-day kindergarten this year.
In the 2016-2017 school year, Strategies for Children’s tuition analysis showed that 56 districts charged tuition for full-day kindergarten, a number that has since dropped significantly. Towns including Plymouth, Pembroke, Marshfield and Scituate all changed from tuition-based to tuition-free kindergarten between 2017 and 2025.
While all municipalities are required to provide free half-day kindergarten to residents, the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education only “strongly encourages” that municipalities provide free full-day kindergarten.
Cohasset has been debating providing tuition-free kindergarten for years, and it used free cash to offer it for the 2023-2024 school year, expecting that Chapter 70 state aid would come in after the town established tuition-free kindergarten. That aid never materialized.
A citizen’s petition on the 2025 Cohasset town meeting warrant would have allocated $300,000 to providing tuition-free full-day kindergarten during the 2025-2026 school year, but the measure failed.
Will Ashton, who worked with Invest in Cohasset to put forth the petition, was elected to the Select Board this month.
In 2025, Hanover considered adopting the same strategy of using reserve funds to establish tuition-free kindergarten for one year with the plan that Chapter 70 state aid would come in to fund tuition-free kindergarten afterward.
But the town abandoned that idea after Director of Finance and Operations Michael Oates told the School Committee that “the opportunity to receive a significant increase in our Chapter 70 reimbursement by transitioning to a no-fee full-day kindergarten is no longer available to us” in February 2025.
According to meeting minutes, he said that declined enrollment increased the percent of local contribution required and turned Hanover Public Schools into a “minimum aid district,” limiting the amount of Chapter 70 funds that Hanover can qualify for. Oates could not be reached for comment.
State data shows that most Massachusetts municipalities had 100% enrollment in full-day kindergarten in the 2025-2026 school year, but districts that charged tuition lagged behind in enrollment. Eight of the nine districts with the lowest enrollment rates charged tuition: Hanover with 86.9%, Norwell with 96.1% and Duxbury with 97.3%. Hanover’s full-day kindergarten enrollment rate is the second-lowest in the state.
South Shore towns have taken different approaches in determining kindergarten tuition. Hingham and Norwell use a sliding scale that determines a family’s tuition costs based on its income, while Hanover charges a flat rate of $3,750 for all families. Cohasset charges a flat rate of $3,000. Students enrolling in Hanover and Cohasset can request tuition assistance through the towns.
The average kindergarten tuition among districts that charged it was $3,439, according to Strategies for Children. Seven of the districts with higher-than-average tuition were in Norfolk or Plymouth counties, and six of the eleven districts that increased tuition over the 2025-2025 school year were in those counties.
At its May 18 meeting, the Norwell School Committee increased tuition by $500. A record-high number of families have registered kindergarteners for the next school year, and eight students have special education fee waivers, prompting the school to hire a new special education aide. With the original tuition of $3,750, kindergarten funding would be short $95,000, school officials projected.
Though Norwell families can request a full waiver of full-day tuition if they qualify for free lunch, all of the 149 full-day students without special education waivers will pay tuition next year. Three students are registered for free half-day kindergarten.
The debate over kindergarten tuition is likely to continue across the South Shore as districts balance rising education costs, uneven state aid and growing demand for full-day programs. For parents in towns that still charge tuition, the cost of kindergarten continues to shape decisions about early education, even as educators and advocates argue that full-day learning has become an essential part of the public school experience rather than an optional extra.
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