Depending on enrollment and funding, all-day kindergarten could become a reality for the large majority, if not all, of Warwick’s 16 elementary schools starting next fall.

Superintendent Richard D’Agostino said last week that’s his goal, but he won’t have a better picture of the possibility until kindergarten registration is completed. Also unknown is whether the state will increase funding for all-day kindergarten, as is being proposed by some legislators.

D’Agostino outlined his objective while responding to a story in Thursday’s Beacon about his candidacy to keep his job.

“I feel energized. The feedback I get from the staff is heads up. We’re moving by leaps and bounds,” he said in an interview Friday.

The department’s director of special education and a former elementary school principal, D’Agostino was tapped as acting superintendent when former Superintendent Peter Horoschak was inexplicably forced out of the job in December 2012. The School Committee later named D’Agostino superintendent, saying it would eventually advertise the post and interview candidates.

Fourteen candidates responded to the posting. That number was reduced to seven. The committee started interviews last week and D’Agostino and William McCaffrey, the only two local candidates known to apply for the job, are to be interviewed this week. A Warwick native who started his education career as a business teacher at Pilgrim High, McCaffrey is the director of the Warwick Area Career and Technical Center.

Universal all-day kindergarten has been a longtime objective of school committee members and Warwick educators. It didn’t seem within the realm of possibility until the system addressed declining school enrollment by closing schools and using those savings to increase kindergarten classrooms. A plan unanimously approved by a 15-member commission under D’Agostino’s leadership called for closing Veterans as a high school and reopening it as a middle school to house students from Gorton and Aldrich, which would be closed. The middle school plan would have freed space in elementary schools, thereby providing space and the money for all-day K.

The committee, however, failed to implement the plan, and instead is now negotiating with an outside consultant to come up with a recommendation.

“I can lead the horses to the pond, but I can’t make them drink,” D’Agostino said.

Declining enrollment has worked in favor of all-day kindergarten. Without impacting the budget, D’Agostino was able to combine half-day sessions to make full-day kindergarten programs at nine schools. He got some assistance from the Warwick Teachers Union, which agreed to expand the maximum class size from 23 to 25 students.

D’Agostino points out that until the system knows how many kindergartners it will have in the fall, there’s no knowing whether the schools currently with all-day K will have them in the fall or whether all-day Ks can be expanded. The other variable is money. He said he is hopeful of additional state funding. He did not say whether his budget would call for all-day K.

In response to comments made by Mayor Scott Avedisian in Thursday’s Beacon, D’Agostino said his budget calls for all ninth-graders to get Chromebooks, a combination tablet and computer. He said the plan would be for each incoming freshman class to get the devices with the students keeping them after they graduate. He put the cost at about $500,000.

Avedisian mentioned the initiative in his inaugural address, but said last week D’Agostino hadn’t followed up with a plan. He was also critical of the superintendent for not following up on a proposal for a Warwick School Department charter-run school. D’Agostino thinks a charter school based around science, engineering, technology and math, or STEM, has possibilities, adding, “It would take years to develop a plan like that.”

D’Agostino said he has been meeting with the mayor and City Council President Donna Travis.

“Everything I have given them is real. It’s not make believe,” he said.

He also said he has been in contact with David Picozzi, director of public works, and Fire Chief Edmund Armstrong during recent storms over road conditions and whether schools should open.

Asked how long he would hope to serve as superintendent if reappointed, D’Agostino said, “I’m still young at heart…one of the things that keeps me going is my 10-year-old.” He said he would like a three-year contract.

D’Agostino started his career in education at CCRI in special education and psychology department in 1980. He came to the Warwick School Department in 1982 as a guidance counselor at Aldrich Junior High. He served as principal of the Oakland Beach School from 1990 to 2006 when named director of special services for the department. He holds degrees from Boston University, Rhode Island College and Providence College.