Increased state aid has ensured that the Red Bank Public School District will be able to provide a pre-K program for 3- year-olds in the coming school year.
The district will receive $2,518,251, a 5 percent increase in state aid over last year. Red Bank was one of the few school districts in the state to receive such a hefty increase in state aid for the preschool expansion program for the upcoming 2009- 10 academic year.
Red Bank School Superintendent Laura C. Morana said the district had notified parents/ guardians that it was awaiting confirmation from the New Jersey State Department of Education (DOE) because there was uncertainty if the program could operate without the state funding the district had requested.
“This is the first year we are ahead of everyone else; we applied to become one of the first districts to implement the expansion initiative and there were five in New Jersey,” Morana said at a meeting with members of the press March 12.
This is the first year that the district began serving 3-year olds. At present, there is one class of about 15 pre-K students.
“With the expansion, I am able to go from 15 to 60 3-year olds who will be serviced through our program and at the 4-yearold level the numbers will pretty much remain the same [at] 105.”
Approved under the New Jersey Department of Education’s (DOE) School Funding Reform Act of 2008, the pre-K mandate requires that all state municipalities provide high-quality full-day preschool classes to economically disadvantaged 3- and 4-yearolds, otherwise known as “at risk” children.
The district has one class of 15 3-yearolds and one additional class of 4-year-olds who are currently housed at the middle school, in part because there is no available space at the Red Bank Primary School.
Instruction is being provided through a partnership with the Community YMCA, which is supplying the teachers. Prior to the partnership, the Y had been using two classrooms at the middle school for its preschool program.
Under N.J. Department of Education rules, if 40 percent of the children attending public school in the borough qualify for reduced cost or free lunch, all borough preschool age children qualify for the program.
The only requirement is the child must by 3 or 4 years old by Oct. 1, 2009.
The district is required to provide a free and high-quality full-day preschool program for 90 percent of 3- and 4-year-olds by the 2012-2013 school year.
Morana also discussed the registration and information sessions held March 3,
“We had just about 90 families come out for the 4-year-old program, but we already have 15 3-year-olds, so those families did not have to be there. If you roll them over, you pretty much have the 105 spots already filled. For the 3-year-old program we had just about 65 families who came out.”
For those families unable to attend the information sessions, there is still time to make a registration appointment through the school.