TOPSHAM
Plans for Maine School Administrative District 75’s pre-kindergarten program are moving ahead, after barely surviving a 7-6 vote of approval by the school board earlier this month.
Board members were divided over class size.
The program will be broken up into two classrooms, one at Williams-Cone Elementary School and one through the Brunswick Head Start program. Assistant Superintendent Daniel Chuhta said the district would have 16 students in each of the classrooms, based on state ratios requiring one adult per eight students. A teacher and ed tech would be needed for the classroom at Williams-Cone.
“It is a hard issue,” said School Board Chairwoman Holly Kopp. “I grappled with it personally for weeks.”
In developing the district’s plan, a task force that included teachers and parents studied the benefits of adding a pre-kindergarten program. A November 2017 survey received 243 responses, with 87 percent expressing a desire for such a program.
The task force’s research also showed pre-K benefits students’ physical, social and emotional development.
“This is not just about helping students learn their letters,” Chuhta told the school board on April 12. “That’s a piece of it, but it’s more along the lines of the physical, social and emotional aspect.”
Rather than use a lottery, the district will use a set of criteria to decide which children are admitted to the pre- K program.
For the Head Start classroom, family income, lack of prior preschool experience and screening results would be used to determine student participation. At Williams-Cone, there wouldn’t be a low-income priority for interested families.
The district would use the same screening results used for kindergarten to help determine the need for students.
“The con is initially to get started, we have a small class size,” said Kopp. “In public education, traditionally your doors are open to everybody.”
The district will receive a state subsidy for the pre-K program — budget estimates have the state funding at $266,387. Those funds would come next school year, which doesn’t always happen with subsidies, according to Chuhta.
“It gives us the funding opportunity in the first year,” he said, “rather than have to wait and catch up in subsequent years.”
The district’s next step will be submitting an application to the state by the end of the month. As is the case with all budget items, Superintendent Brad Smith said, it is dependent on approval at the May 24 District Budget Committee meeting.
“I believe strongly in the value of pre-K,” he said, “particularly for students who have not had opportunities to develop strong language skills, social interactions, and other appropriate developmental skills.”
chris@timesrecord.com
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