• Preschool attendance increases student K-12 success
Lincoln County School District No. 2 Education Foundation is exploring ways to better prepare children for kindergarten by increasing the accessibility of preschool opportunities to families that have preschool aged children.
Tim Hale, who serves as Chairman of the Board with the LCSD No. 2 Education Foundation explained their concern in an interview with the SVI Radio Network at the beginning of April.
As the foundation has openly communicated with Superintendent Matt Erickson, some concern has emerged regarding kindergarten readiness in the community. “A lot of that, we suspect, has to do with who is in preschool and who is not, and why.”
To address this concern, the foundation has been working with the school district through Superintendent Erickson and Emily Isaacson, who serves as the district Parents-as-Teachers Coordinator, to identify the exact reasons for the problem.
Annually, the school district has conducted studies to understand kindergarten readiness, but the Foundation is joining the effort, connecting with private preschools in the community to identify the reason why many families are choosing not to enroll their child in preschool. “Is it the cost of attending? Is it transportation? Is there something else that is working against getting kids into preschool?”
“The data is so abundantly clear on this point that if kids have some sort of educational experience, usually via preschool, before kindergarten, they are so much more prepared and those kids do so much better as they go throughout the rest of their K-12 education. It’s not the quality of preschools, but the attendance is what we’re focusing on.”
The Foundation’s goal is to create a plan of action to support families and facilitate the “overall participation of those kids at age four and five” so that preschool enrollment numbers are “as high as they should be, so these kids are ready for kindergarten.”
Parents can expect invitations to respond to polls and preschool administrators can expect the Foundation and district officials to reach out seeking information about current trends in family situations that may drive enrollment. The Foundation hopes to serve as a “partner and facilitator in alleviating the lower enrollments numbers.
Hale suggested that if the challenge with enrollment is financial, the foundation could potentially offer scholarships to cover the cost of preschool attendance. This is “an example. It’s an idea. We can get those scholarships through private donors. We have donors who would be more than happy to donate funds to us if it meant that we give those dollars to kids and get them in preschool and get them on a better track.”
“It’s still early and we’re still trying to figure out what the root of the problem is,” Hale said. “Once we find out, in teaming up with the preschools and the school district, we would like to find some options to help out because this is a concern in the community.”
