By Eileen Oldfield Staff Writer
HILLSBOROUGH — About 30 Hillsborough 3- and 4-year-olds will be heading to class, if New Jersey continues with a mandated public school preschool plan requiring districts to provide a preschool in the 2009-2010 school year.
The Board of Education approved a motion to submit its five-year preschool program plan to the New Jersey Department of Education, Division of Early Childhood at its Oct. 20 meeting.
”If the current state mandate remains, we are expected to begin the preschool program to eligible 3- and 4-year-olds in the 2009-2010 school year,” said Lisa Antunes, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction.
Districts throughout the state must institute the programs for economically at-risk 3- and 4-year-olds in 2009, with the state promising to finance the programs.
”There ought to be no cost to the school district,” Dr. Antunes said in an e-mail. “The state is mandating and paying for this program.”
According to figures Dr. Antunes received from the Department of Education, the district’s projected enrollment is 30 students over a five-year period.
Since planning program is ongoing, Dr. Antunes could not say which school would house the program, or whether classes would be located in several district elementary schools.
”At this point, we are not sure if the class will be held on-site or off-site,” Dr. Antunes said.
The preschool would be open to district 3- and 4-year-olds, though the state does not require parents to send their students to the public preschool.
Though the state outlined what each district preschool must have — including an administrator, a head teacher, and teachers who are all certified in preschool education — Dr. Antunes said the department provides workshops to assist districts in planning the programs.
Under the state requirements, preschools must be six hours long, with the schools providing breakfast, a snack, and lunch for the students.
The district’s selected curriculum must be approved by the state; like any school curriculum, the preschools will be on a five-year revision cycle.
The preschool programs mimic the preschool programs in the state’s Abbott districts, with the expansions being phased-in over time, according to the Department of Education’s Web site.

