2008 Woodie Awards
District gets preschool $
Brian Stewart - The Daily Iowan
Issue date: 7/20/07 Section: Metro
The Iowa City School District will receive a portion of statewide funding given to districts in order to increase access to state- and federal-sponsored preschool programs to 90 percent of Iowa's 4-year-olds by 2011.
Gov. Chet Culver, who created the voluntary preschool program in May, announced the 52 recipient districts on July 17; a total of 176 Iowa districts applied to receive funding. Each of the 52 districts will receive a portion of $15 million for the 2007-08 school year. Statewide, $15 million will be distributed each year during the next four years, totaling $60 million by 2011.
"[Receiving the grant] means we can reach out to children who otherwise wouldn't have that experience," School Board member Jan Leff said.
The district's existing preschool programs demonstrates to the state it is dedicated to early childhood education, and that may have been a factor in being selected as a recipient, she said.
"We know it makes a difference in their lives to get that early education," she said.
When investing the grant money, Leff said, the district will most likely focus on one or two schools that have high poverty rates or a large number of students who are learning English as a second language.
The additional funds and strengthening of the district's preschool programs shouldn't affect current in-home childcare and preschool programs, she said.
But Jill Dobbs, the owner of Simple Abundance Childcare, which also operates a preschool program, feels that providers like her could potentially be affected.
"[The grant] can be a very good thing if it is inclusive of all the childcare centers in the county," she said, noting that this includes privately owned daycare programs.
She said she would like the district to include transportation between in-home providers such as herself and the state-funded program.
"I hope that the Iowa City [School District] will see that it's an important part to collaborate with homes as well as centers so that children in our programs have access to [state programs]," she said. "It's very beneficial as long as it does not put quality home-care providers out of service."
Funding for each district is determined by the amount requested when applying for the grant. The School District requested approximately $160,000. Districts that received the grant this year will not need to re-apply next year.
The grant requires the state-funded programs to provide a minimum of 10 instruction hours weekly by a licensed early education teacher.
School district administrators were not available for comment this week.
E-mail DI reporter Brian Stewart at:
brian-stewart@uiowa.edu
Gov. Chet Culver, who created the voluntary preschool program in May, announced the 52 recipient districts on July 17; a total of 176 Iowa districts applied to receive funding. Each of the 52 districts will receive a portion of $15 million for the 2007-08 school year. Statewide, $15 million will be distributed each year during the next four years, totaling $60 million by 2011.
"[Receiving the grant] means we can reach out to children who otherwise wouldn't have that experience," School Board member Jan Leff said.
The district's existing preschool programs demonstrates to the state it is dedicated to early childhood education, and that may have been a factor in being selected as a recipient, she said.
"We know it makes a difference in their lives to get that early education," she said.
When investing the grant money, Leff said, the district will most likely focus on one or two schools that have high poverty rates or a large number of students who are learning English as a second language.
The additional funds and strengthening of the district's preschool programs shouldn't affect current in-home childcare and preschool programs, she said.
But Jill Dobbs, the owner of Simple Abundance Childcare, which also operates a preschool program, feels that providers like her could potentially be affected.
"[The grant] can be a very good thing if it is inclusive of all the childcare centers in the county," she said, noting that this includes privately owned daycare programs.
She said she would like the district to include transportation between in-home providers such as herself and the state-funded program.
"I hope that the Iowa City [School District] will see that it's an important part to collaborate with homes as well as centers so that children in our programs have access to [state programs]," she said. "It's very beneficial as long as it does not put quality home-care providers out of service."
Funding for each district is determined by the amount requested when applying for the grant. The School District requested approximately $160,000. Districts that received the grant this year will not need to re-apply next year.
The grant requires the state-funded programs to provide a minimum of 10 instruction hours weekly by a licensed early education teacher.
School district administrators were not available for comment this week.
E-mail DI reporter Brian Stewart at:
brian-stewart@uiowa.edu
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