Will budget axe fall on extended day preschool program?

Published in the January 31, 2018 edition

By DAN TOMASELLO

LYNNFIELD — The School Department is being forced to eliminate Community Schools’ Preschool Extended Day (PREDS) program in the 2018-2019 school year due to growing first grade enrollment.

Community Schools runs the PREDS program at Summer Street School. Community Schools accepts children between ages 2 years and 9 months to pre-kindergarten into the program. Community Schools runs the program from September through June.

The elimination of PREDS was discussed during Monday’s School Committee and Board of Selectmen meetings, where the School Department’s budgetary challenges in fiscal year 2019 were discussed at great length. A comprehensive report on the school system’s budget challenges will be appearing in the Feb. 7 edition of the newspaper.

Superintendent Jane Tremblay explained why the decision to eliminate PREDS was made in an interview with the Villager.

“I don’t have any space to run the program due to the fact the kindergarten numbers are so large that I have to run a fifth first grade classroom,” said Tremblay.

On Monday, Tremblay told the selectmen and school board the School Department’s class size guidelines for kindergarten and first grade is between 18-22 students. She said there are 91 kindergarteners enrolled at Summer Street and school officials are projecting a 10 percent increase in enrollment before the 2018-2019 school year begins. If a first grade teacher is not added to Summer Street, Tremblay said the elementary school will be forced to run four first grade classes that would each contain 25 students.

“With another teacher, we can offer five classes of 20 students each,” said Tremblay.

School officials’ decision to eliminate PREDS was met by resistance from 10 parents during the School Committee’s meeting on Monday. Pillings Pond Road resident Crystal Bates read a statement on behalf of the group of parents who utilize PREDS. Bates created a petition on Change.org calling for the program to be reinstated for the 2018-2019 school year. As of Tuesday morning, 157 people signed the petition. Bates has set a goal of receiving 200 signatures.

Bates outlined two reasons why PREDS should continue being offered by Community Schools in the prepared statement.

“PREDS is so much more than an extended day childcare program,” said Bates. “Beyond the absolutely vital need for extended day childcare to the large and growing working parent population of Lynnfield, PREDS is an integral part of the preschool experience for many current and future students. This program embraces our youngest and most vulnerable students, gently welcomes them into the larger school community, and teaches them to love learning from a very early age.”

Bates also proposed creating a special task force in order to examine growing school enrollment in all four schools. She requested that parents serve on the task force in order to “fully explore the rising population issue in our schools in hopes of creating a proactive and transparent dialogue and action plan.”

“The overcrowding of our schools is a district-wide problem and affects all of our children and families, either now or in the near future,” said Bates. “The removal of the PREDs program is just a Band Aid today, and it may be your child’s favorite program, or your extended day program that is eliminated next. We owe it to ourselves and our children to get ahead of this growing issue.”

Bates also said the “timing and communication of this change is unacceptable.”

“Preschool enrollment for both the public and private school systems runs November through January,” said Bates. “Notifying families in mid-January, a time when most preschools are full with waiting lists, has left many families who need full day care struggling for solutions. Even more confusing, these same families received registration forms for PREDS in mid-December, just a few short weeks before getting the cancellation notice.

“The space issue at the Summer Street School is well known, and not a recent development,” Bates continued. “Yet, no mention was made during preschool registration that there was even a possibility that the PREDS program might be at risk. In fact, many families were referred to the PREDS program in the fall from the same office that is now communicating its removal.”

Bates also requested that the School Committee hold a meeting to discuss the PREDS issue before the school board’s next meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 6. The meeting will begin at 6:30 p.m. at the Al Merritt Center.

“We respectfully request an open meeting before your next School Committee meeting on Feb. 6, at a time that accommodates the working families most impacted by this decision, to brainstorm creative solutions to the most timely issues of reinstating PREDs and discuss the communication issues present in the preschool,” said Bates.

Tremblay informed the Villager she and Special Services Director Kara Mauro will be holding an informational meeting about PREDS on Wednesday, Feb. 7, beginning at 9 a.m. at Central Office, 525 Salem St.