Board to Be Asked to Make Preschools 5 Days a Week

By Raviya H. Ismail, The Lexington Herald-Leader, Ky.

Jun. 13–Fayette County’s preschool program will expand to five days a week at more than 22 elementary schools if board members approve a plan aimed to redesign the district.

If approved next Monday, increasing preschool by one day a week will be the first recommendation of the school system’s 2020 Vision report to be implemented. Board members began reviewing the report yesterday evening and will continue at meetings next month.

Some of the ideas will be implemented during the upcoming school year, said Superintendent Stu Silberman.

“I’m tickled to death that we’re beginning the implementation phase,” he said. “When we started this, this was a long, long-range vision looking towards 2020.”

Silberman called on the community more than a year ago to help redesign the district. After that request, for six months 21 groups — focusing on education topics ranging from arts to critical-thinking skills — researched ways to enhance learning at all levels.

The goal for the early-childhood group was that the district immediately “move from a K-12 system to a pre-K-12 system,” said Alice Nelson, a member of the group. “Our long-term goal is a quality preschool system available for all 3- or 4-year-olds in Fayette County in either a public or private setting.”

Currently, preschool is available four days a week at 22 schools. Only 3- and 4-year-olds who have disabilities, are low-income or have English as a second language qualify for preschool funding from the state.

Among the early-childhood group’s other ideas: hiring an art teacher who would specialize at preschools, expanding the early-childhood district office into an early-childhood department, and incorporating preschool classrooms into elementary school construction designs.

The overarching goal of the entire 2020 Vision project was to identify barriers to learning, such as disparities between minority, low-income or special education students and other students. The aim is to close this achievement gap and push the school district into the country’s top 5 percent.

After the 21 groups came up with ideas, three larger groups have worked since March on ways to implement proposals immediately. Groups continue to work on the 2020 Vision project with the plan that new proposals will be introduced each year.

An idea that would begin in January 2007 is to establish a steering committee made up of parents, school personnel and community representatives to assist the district’s early-childhood department.

“The achievement gap starts before kindergarten,” said Don Blevins, whose two sons both attended full-day preschool programs. “If we wait until they reach elementary school to attack the achievement gap, we’ve already lost.”

Although participants said they were afraid the district will not have enough money to implement all of the ideas, Silberman said none of the initial recommendations was left out of the final report.

“Each year we hope to implement a little more,” he said.

Visit www.2020vision.fcps.net [http://www.2020vision.fcps.net] for more information on 2020 Vision.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Lexington Herald-Leader, Ky.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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