Schools

Community Shows Support for Tuition-Based Three Village Preschool

Hundreds of families reported interest in sending their kids to a Three Village Central School District preschool program.

A survey released by the Three Village Central School District last spring to gauge parents' interest in a tuition-based preschool program for four-year-olds has returned positive results.

Cathy Taldone, director of school and community partnerships, said she anticipates the Three Village Central School District will be able to offer such a program. It would be based at Nassakeag Elementary, which currently has several unused classrooms.

"We’re excited to provide another service to our community," Taldone said in an interview with Patch. "There’s an interest. It’s very satisfying."

The district received 845 responses. Of those, 365 responses indicated the family would have a child four years of age by the 2014-2015 school year, including 249 responses that indicated direct interest in signing a child up for the program. Additionally, those 249 respondents indicated collectively that there would be more than 200 children to possibly attend the program beyond the 2014-2015 school year.

Taldone emphasized that the program would be supported by tuition payments.

"This is not coming out of the tax base," she said. "We’re not putting this in instead of K-through-12 programs. We’re looking it as another way to possibly produce revenue for the district."

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While the specifics of a preschool program haven't been laid out yet, Taldone said it would probably need a minimum of 20 children to open a classroom, and would need multiple classrooms to make the program viable. 

"If it doesn’t cost the district anything and we can provide such a valuable service to the community, we want do that," she said.

Find out what's happening in Three Villagewith free, real-time updates from Patch.


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