Kalamazoo Public Schools is a district of about 12,000 students, the largest school district in southwest Michigan and the second largest on the west side of the state. Since the Kalamazoo Promise was announced in 2005, giving free college tuition for KPS high school graduates, KPS has improved its schools in a whole host of ways. We have gained more than 2,100 students since the announcement of the Promise, more than 1,100 additionally in the last four years after the 1,000-student increase of the Promise's first year. We increased the number of kindergarten students in full-day kindergarten from 176 in 2007-2008 to 883 students in 2008-2009, to 944 students in 2009-2010. Full-day kindergarten provides an additional 370,000 instructional hours for kindergarten students in KPS.
