Written By: James Straub, Courtesy of the Ellsworth American
SEDGWICK — There’s a new kid on the block at the Sedgwick Elementary School. Make that 13 new kids on the block.
That’s the current enrollment of preschoolers in the Peninsula Early Care and Education Center, a daycare and preschool program that opened in the elementary school last week.
“We’ve been talking about a preschool program for about 12 years since it was identified as a need,” said Principal Don Buckingham.
That need is now being filled through a collaboration involving the school, St. Francis by the Sea Episcopal Church and Child and Family Opportunities.
Though the need for a preschool program has long been recognized, funding such a program has been elusive.
Buckingham said that a few years ago, school officials debated whether to increase kindergarten classes to full day or keep them at half day and start a preschool program. Doing both was financially prohibitive.
A decision was made to make kindergarten a full-day program and look for another opportunity to create a preschool program.
That opportunity knocked on the door about 18 months ago when members of the St. Francis Community Fund board were looking for a public school on the Blue Hill Peninsula to host an early child care and education center.
“It was serendipitous that the St. Francis Community Fund was looking for a host for a preschool,” Buckingham said last week.
At the time, St. Francis was working with Child and Family Opportunities. Eventually, the three entities came together to create the Peninsula Early Care and Education Center.
“We’re hosting it in collaboration with Child and Family Opportunities with funding from St. Francis,” said Buckingham. “It’s a unique collaboration of public and private entities.”
The St. Francis Community Fund has donated $67,000 over the next three years to provide startup funds and will continue to support the program through parishioner volunteers.
Child and Family Opportunities provides staff for daycare and an education component through Head Start, a national program administered by the Department of Health and Human Services to promote school readiness in young children.
The curriculum is based on guidelines set by the state for early childhood learning and on performance standards set by Head Start.
The program, which could enroll as many as twenty 3- and 4-year-olds, is open to all families on the Blue Hill Peninsula, with Sedgwick 4-year-olds receiving priority for services.
Parents seeking childcare can enroll their children from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday year-round. Payment for the service is based on a sliding fee scale.
The Head Start component will operate Monday through Thursday mornings during the school year. Those services are offered free of charge to all Sedgwick 4-year-olds or to children living in the area who are eligible for Head Start, a federal child development program for low-income preschoolers.
“We’re working on traffic patterns,” Buckingham quipped when asked how the new students were fitting in at the school. “It’s truly delightful to have these 4-year-olds in our school and their parents.”
As required by the Head Start program, parents sign their children into the program each day.
“We have parents in the school every day,” said Buckingham. “That’s terrific. It’s always nice to have parents around.”
For more information or to enroll, call Melissa Mattes at Child and Family Opportunities, 667-2995.
