“When is pre-K coming back?”
Members of the Board of Education of the Poughkeepsie City School District are often asked that question by parents who want to see its return.
Parents may soon get their wish. A limited pre-kindergarten program for 127 students is in the planning stages. If all goes as expected, it will begin in January 2008.
Parents interested in signing a child up for pre-K would fill out an application once they become available. If students outnumbered 127 available spots, applications would be drawn at random through a lottery.
The district will seek partnerships with outside agencies to run the program. A competitive process determines which providers are selected – a request for proposals (RFP) has gone out to existing childcare providers. Examples of groups that run programs in the city include Astor Head Start, Community Family Development, the Jewish Community Center, Catharine Street Community Center and the YMCA.
An estimated three to four programs would be selected. District officials do not yet know whether transportation will be offered – that depends on what cooperating partners agree to provide.
The limited enrollment for 2008 is intended as a start for a program that Albany leaders have said they intend to eventually offer to all 4-year-olds in the district.
For many years, the district operated a pre-K program, but state funding was eliminated in 2005. Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D) called for reinstituting it last year, setting aside funds for school districts in the 2007 state budget. Poughkeepsie was allocated about $640,000 from the state for pre-K for the 2007-08 school year, but the district must formally apply to receive the allocation. Karen Markelof, assistant superintendent for instruction, will develop the application after city childcare programs return the RFPs.
Although the program would operate at childcare facilities and not in a school, Markeloff emphasized that the district will maintain control by setting the curriculum and training instructors.
“It would be our program,” she said.
Partnering with outside providers would be more efficient than running the program in-house, according to Markeloff. In addition, there is little space available in the schools this year. But with three to four sites located around the city, childcare would not be far from home, administrators said.
School board members expressed approval that the district would soon be offering pre-K again. “It’s one of the biggest things on everyone’s agenda,” said board member Robert Creedon.
“Everywhere I go, people ask about pre-K,” said board member Greg Charter, adding that filling 127 spots should not be difficult.
Spitzer has said he wants to eventually offer pre-K for all. “We must focus on that period in a child’s life that is developmentally the most critical – from birth to 5 years old,” said Spitzer in his state-of-the-state address earlier this year. “Within four years, we should make pre-kindergarten available to every 4-year-old in New York.”
Early drafts of the state budget had earmarked $1.6 million for Poughkeepsie’s pre-K program. But funding was substantially scaled back during negotiations in the state Assembly – meaning Poughkeepsie’s program would have to start small.