School officials in Brookfield-LaGrange Park District 95 are contemplating potentially doubling the size of the preschool program overseen by the department of special education.
District 95 has one classroom at S.E. Gross Middle School in Brookfield which is used for two sections of pre-school (one in the morning and one in the afternoon). Another classroom in the school is used by the LaGrange Area Department of Special Education (LADSE), which provides services to many school districts in the western suburbs, including Brookfield.
However, LADSE has indicated it will be vacating its space in the school beginning in 2010-11, allowing District 95 an opportunity to expand its Preschool for All program for students who live within its own boundaries. The LADSE program serves about 20 children primarily from other communities.
“The room is on the first floor, has a bathroom and is off the courtyard,” said District 95 Special Education Director Jeannie Zeitlin. “It’d be ideal.”
While District 95 has offered a preschool program for many years to students between the ages of 3 and 5 with disabilities, for the past two years it has opened up the program to other students, such as at-risk learners and students with limited English language skills. In the past those students may never have received any instruction prior to kindergarten.
“There were no opportunities for the students to interact with those without disabilities,” Zeitlin said. “This is much more inclusive.”
Through a federal grant administered via the state of Illinois through LADSE, District 95 has offered its Preschool for All program to students identified with disabilities or other risk factors at screenings conducted by special education staff.
District 95 has been promised between $60,000 and $70,000 per year through the grant program, although the state has been late in disbursing the funds both years. For the 2008-09 school year, the district didn’t receive its pre-school grant until the summer of 2009. They have still not received grant funding promised to the district for 2009-10, Zeitlin said.
Setting aside another classroom for preschool would require hiring a full-time master’s degree-level teacher and a teacher’s aide.
While the prospect of losing that grant funding is real given the state’s financial condition, Zeitlin said that if the funding remains the same for 2010-11, she believes the district would be able to expand its pre-school offering from two sections to four, enough to serve up to 80 students.
Having access to the preschool instruction has been crucial for preparing these students for kindergarten. Of the students in the pre-school program this year, all of them will attend kindergarten at Brook Park School in 2010-11, Zeitlin said.
“We’re really trying to let them have an authentic kindergarten experience,” Zeitlin said.
Zeitlin pointed to two students who spoke only Spanish when they started in the program two months ago as examples of how the Preschool for All program can help kids.
“Just a couple of months make a big difference,” Zeitlin said. “For those kids, that’s huge.”
The key for moving forward is the funding, Zeitlin said.
“We’re just waiting for LADSE to give us the spots,” she said. “They hold the grant, and we’d be looking for them to support the program. Will the promised funding reach us? If it does, we’d be able to make this a go.”