The funding piece for a neighborhood kindergarten program at the Mark T. Skinner Classical School may be off the table, according to the school’s principal.

That prediction came after the release of the Chicago Public Schools’ preliminary budget for the 2010-2011 school year. That document foresees a $16 million reduction in resources supporting full-day kindergarten programs across the district.

“We will just have to grin and bear it, and hope for the best from the state of Illinois,” said Principal Deborah Clark, at a local school council meeting at Skinner on Tuesday.

Faculty and parents at Skinner had hoped to secure financing for a full-day kindergarten class for neighborhood students at the 742-seat school, located at 1260 W. Adams. Clark estimated that a salaried teacher for the program would run the school $40,000 a year.

Children in Illinois are not required to attend kindergarten as a precursor to first grade, per the state board of education, making the programs patent fodder for budget downsizing.

CPS’s draft budget calls for $700 million in cutback from both the central office and individual schools, including a $34 million cut in early childhood education programs, $27 million carved out of bilingual education funding and a freeze on all academic enhancement program expansion. The draft budget expects 500 central office positions will be trimmed.

“Because of the District’s huge projected FY 2011 deficit we have to prepare for a variety of scenarios,” CPS spokesperson Frank Shuftan wrote in an e-mail.

Shuftan wrote that “no school-based budgets have been disseminated yet.”

If funding for the full-day program doesn’t come through, Skinner may have to look outside the district to cover their kindergarten costs.

But Skinner school council vice chair Seamus Glynn acknowledged that raising money for the program could be a challenge, since some sources that normally contribute to special school projects could view the kindergarten program as free daycare.

“We’re in a tough position, going out and trying to raise money … for a program that is to the financial benefit of the parents, without at least some matching program,” he said. “We have to be open-minded about this.”

Another option is a tuition-based program, where parents would pay directly out of pocket — a road that other city schools have gone down for their pre-kindergarten and kindergarten programs.

Support for the program might also come out of the school’s discretionary funds, an annual allowance doled out to CPS schools which can range from $100,000 to $200,000.

Though viable as a source for operating expenditures, the funds are already stretched thin over the school’s programming, Clark said.

The school could also opt to provide a half-day program, but some council members worried would that leave students at a disadvantage once they got to first grade.

Glynn warned that even if the funding did come through, the kindergarten program at Skinner would continue to be a moving budgetary target.

“Ask anybody at CPS, they’re thinking about that,” he said. “They know that there are only so many ways you can cut, and that’s a discretionary program.”

CPS is expected to release a final version of the plan to schools by March 29, with budget hearings slated to begin in early August.

Historically a test-in school, CPS added a West Loop component at Skinner starting last fall with a kindergarten class.

The school was split into two facilities — one, at 1443 N. Ogden, remained completely selective-enrollment. The other, the newly renovated Skinner “West,” on Adams Street, combines two selective-enrollment classes with one magnet class for neighborhood students.