JANESVILLE — No one knows how many families will choose the Janesville School District’s new 4-year-old kindergarten program this fall.
One thing that’s certain, however, is that most of the children won’t start their public-school careers in actual public schools.
The district on Friday released a list of 17 sites where Preschool 4 Janesville—also called P4J—will be offered. Most are private preschools or day-care centers. Others include the federally funded Head Start program, the YMCA, the YWCA and the child-care center at Blackhawk Technical College’s central campus.
P4J Coordinator Kristen Moisson said it’s not yet possible to tell whether P4J also will be offered at any public school building, because “we have no idea of numbers at this point.”
It’s possible the private sites will be enough. Moisson hopes to have a better idea of the numbers in a couple weeks, after parents sign up during the district’s Child Development Days.
Most of the 17 sites in the Preschool 4 Janesville program will hold open houses Wednesday through Friday this week.
Nearly 700 children attend 5-year-old kindergarten in the public schools, and some have suggested that a like number would be eligible for P4J.
Not all will sign up, however. P4J—just like 5-year-old kindergarten—is not compulsory. Parents may send their children to day-care centers and preschools that aren’t part of P4J or keep their kids at home.
Officials estimated that about 250 of the district’s 689 kindergartners were not prepared for the kindergarten curriculum when they entered school last September.
The fact that so many children were not ready for school at age 5 was a major argument that led to school-board approval of the new program.
Officials believe that when parents can’t afford to give their children a quality preschool experience, those children fall behind, and many never catch up, leading to behavior problems, truancy and other problems during their school years and poverty, crime and other social ills when they reach adulthood.
Some say quality preschool for all could be key in removing the student achievement gap between the “haves” and “have-nots.”
However, both “haves” and “have-nots” are welcome to join P4J.
Preschool 4 Janesville sites
Participating P4J locations and numbers to call for open houses and other information:
-- Cargill Christian Preschool and Daycare, 200 Wesley Ave., (608) 752-2140—Arolyn Adams.
-- Children’s Learning Center at Blackhawk Technical College, 6004 S. County G, (608) 757-7751—Diane Witkowski.
-- Community Kid’s Learning Center, 2230 Center Ave., (608) 755-2488—Nancy Thieding.
-- Creative Children’s Learning Center, 2419 Harvard Drive, (608) 754-7599—Carol Horan or Rena DeWar.
-- Exchange Family Resource Center, 2020 E. Milwaukee St., (608) 314-9006—Nancy Brooks.
-- Fingerprints of God, 524 Benton Ave., (608) 743-0707—Darlene Grair.
-- Goelzer’s First Step Nursery School, 1600 E. Milwaukee St., 752-7355—Cindy Hackett.
-- Hand in Hand, 2200 Ruger Ave., (608) 758-3607—Janice Dye and Ann Reed-Lehr.
-- Head Start, St. Peters Church Head Start Center, 1422 Center Ave., (608) 299-1500 or 1-800-774-7778—Janice Kuchelmeister.
-- Janesville Community Day Care Center, 3103 Ruger Ave., 752-8035—Theresa Marshall.
-- Janesville Montessori Children’s House, 1219 S. Oakhill Ave., 754-9196—Lea Borskie and Tara Yanchik.
-- Kid’s House, 336 Milton Ave., 752-6835—Laura Simkin.
-- KinderCare Learning Center, 3327 E. Milwaukee St., 755-9970—Julie Smith and Helena Gaynor.
-- Ms. Amy’s Jolly Jungle Preschool, 203 S. Main St., (608) 868-7503—Amy Zimmerman.
-- LSS Child’s First Child Care and Preschool, 612 N. Randall Ave., 752-0743—Tonya Kristiansen.
-- YMCA, 221 Dodge St., 754-6654, Ext. 103—Storm Mehring.
-- YWCA Discovery Center, 1735 S. Washington St., 752-5445—Lisa Peternel or Jessica Mueller.
P4J basics
-- Cost—It’s free.
-- Transportation—In most cases, parents are responsible. The district will provide busing in accordance with its policy for all other students. Generally, busing is provided if the child lives more than two miles from any of the sites.
-- Hours—The program lasts 2.5 to three hours, four or five days a week. The state requires that the programs provide 437 hours in a school year.
-- Only 3 hours? Some sites provide “wrap-around” programming, such as day-care or more preschool. Parents must pay for any wrap-around service.
-- Curriculum—P4J seeks to teach fine and gross motor skills, social/emotional skills and speech and language skills, among others. Most teaching is done in a learning-through-play model. For more details, see Wisconsin’s Model Early Learning Standards at http://dpi.wi.gov/ec/ecqualhm.html. Also see www.collaboratingpartners.com.
-- Funding—Local and state sources, including state school aids, the property tax levy and possibly a state grant that officials are hoping to receive.
-- Parent education—The state requires 87.5 hours of activities for parents during the school year. Some of those include parent-teacher conferences or social gatherings. Others will be classes in parenting techniques. District-wide parenting sessions will be open to anyone in the school district, not just P4J parents.
-- For more information—Call Kristen Moisson, early learning curriculum coordinator for the Janesville School District, (608) 743-5059.