HOWELL – The Howell Township School District has announced an update to their preschool expansion program, discussing their goals and estimated benchmarks.
In 2022, Governor Phil Murphy and the New Jersey Department of Education (DOE) announced the $26 million in funding, which was apportioned in the FY2023 budget. With these grants, nearly 2,150 additional three- and four-year-old children will have access to a preschool classroom across the state. This would increase New Jersey’s preschool seats to nearly 70,000.
Howell was one of 27 districts across the state to receive funding to aid their preschool program in the 2022-2023 school year. They received an amount of $2,286,405 from the state grant.
At the time, Superintendent of Schools Joseph Isola said the money will be used for a five-year plan to serve preschoolers in Howell Township. Its first year began in fall 2022.
At the May 24 Board of Education meeting, Isola provided an update on the process and where they currently stand with the expansion.
“The years get a little confusing; we are currently in our first year of the expansion grant. We have already completed our lottery and currently registering, inviting students to be registered for September 2023 where we will be adding 12 more classrooms. Those 12 classrooms will be outfitted in the existing buildings, the five primary buildings, just like they did for year one,” Isola said in his report. “When we go to year three, what the committee is grappling with is the timeline. We have five years to go to universe. Our universe is about 900 students, this is what they’re predicting we will have in our preschool program. That will require an excess of 60 classrooms of preschool across our district.”
According to state regulations, every school must have a plan to reach almost all of the “universe” of preschool-aged children in their district.
Isola further discussed how the board is currently working on picking the best model that will work for the district. Their plan is to create small discussion groups to weigh the pros and cons of each model.
“We actually own space due to the previous build out in the late turn of the century and the declining of enrollment that followed throughout the early 2000s. We built out for an excess of 8,000 students and we currently have about 5,500. So, you can recognize there is space there,” Isola said. “Where that space exists becomes the challenge and that’s what the council is looking at and what model of delivery will be chosen. We have looked at models that include the current model where preschools exist in the primary schools that we already have. We recognize they will outgrow those facilities and we’ll have to move if we continue to do that.”
Model 1 is a school district that will be structured in a way that offers two buildings of early learning centers. Then there will be four sister-pair schools for grades K-5, then two middle schools. Model 2 is two early learning centers, eight K-5 schools, and two middle schools.
“No matter how you look at it, there will be two middle schools and two early learning centers, but there are different configurations for the K-5 schools,” Isola explained.
“We are currently doing deep dives on these two specific models. These are not to be perceived as decisions but rather proof of concepts to see if we chose a model, does it work? We’re not going to discuss specific schools at this point, but what we’re looking at two different models that include early learning centers,” Isola added.
Isola also added that the district is using programs to help see what plans work based on where kids live as well as looking into their specialty programs at certain schools.
“It is my goal to get to Universe by year three, September 2024. Because of our unique situation of owning that space, if we designate an early learning center and don’t fill it, that could be problematic. Furthermore, the earlier we can provide free, high-quality preschool for our community, for everyone in our community, the better,” Isola said.
Isola ended his report by stating a presentation on the expansion plans will be presented to the board by July.
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