Agenda - 04-20-2010-13 (1) - Laserfiche WebLink

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Attachment 1 I~[~,~~L I-~ILL- _ O~RO- ~~: ~,~ __ CITY SCHOOLS Date: March 31, 2010 To: Shannon Berry From: Todd LoFrese Re: Pre-K Space Concerns As you requested, I am providing some information with respect to the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Pre-K space concerns. Currently there are ten elementary schools in our district. Nine of the ten schools currently have Pre-K classrooms on their campus. Estes Hills Elementary School is currently our only school without aPre-K classroom, although the school desires to have one. Site limitations at the school have made it difficult to accommodate aPre-K classroom. Our Pre-K program is geared towards serving all types of children, including exceptional children, economically disadvantaged, as well as tuition paying students. The mission of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Pre-K/Head Start Program, in partnership with families and communities, is to provide high quality, developmentally appropriate early childhood education, which will prepare all children for a positive educational start. It is well supported that Pre-K programs help prepare students for success in school and provide more opportunities to help reach our fragile learners. Currently, our total Pre-K enrollment is 239 students in a total of 17 locations. Ten classrooms are currently located within our schools and seven are located in mobile classrooms. In addition, we currently have ten students who are in referral for exceptional children services. This will result in another classroom being added this year. We have struggled identifying potential locations for new Pre-K classrooms for a variety of reasons. First, many of our older elementary schools were not designed with a dedicated Pre-K classroom and lack the auxiliary spaces that could be converted to serve this or another purpose. Second, our current level of service is 100°10 of our SAPFO capacity which is making it a struggle to find spaces to meet our K-5 program needs. Third, the unique requirements of the Pre-K licensing process limit our flexibility with allocating spaces for this purpose. Some of the Pre-K licensing regulations require us to provide access to a separate fenced play area and provide ready access to bathroom facilities. Ideally it should also be in a location easily accessible by parents as well. Finally the total number of Pre-K students is approaching 250 students. Despite our newer schools being designed with aPre-K space, we are trying to accommodate what equates to nearly half of an elementary school throughout nine of our ten campuses. As a result, we are now asking ourselves some tough questions, such as; if our EC Pre-K spaced needs increase, should we be decreasing the number of spaces for our tuition paying students?