Fort Scott Preschool Center, 409 S. Judson, has a waitlist of approximately 25 three-year-old students this year.
“We began this school year with 93 students,” said Nick Johnson, the preschool’s principal. “Between students moving into the district and students transitioning from Infant-Toddler services, we are finishing the year with 120 students.”
To solve that problem the USD234 School District has begun the process of renovating a building at 9th and Horton Streets for a preschool center. The building was originally owned by Mercy Hospital.
“The new building will allow our program to expand to five classrooms and all those classrooms will be under one roof,” he said. “Having five classrooms will allow us to increase our enrollment and decrease class sizes. The new building will also provide more space for related services. In our current situation speech therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy, mental health services, and English Speakers of Other Languages services all share very limited space. Having staff in the same location will allow for increased collaboration and more consistency between classrooms.”
“Currently, everything being done is behind-the-scenes planning by the architects and engineers.,” Johnson said.
“Architects and engineers are currently working on plans for the new building,” he said. “The school board held a hearing at the April board meeting to begin the process of hiring a construction manager at-risk. The next step will be to hire a construction manager at risk. We are planning for construction to begin this summer.”
“Construction should be completed during the 2024-25 school year,” he said. “We are planning to be in the new building for the 2025-26 school year.”
Criteria to attend Fort Scott Preschool Center is based on age,” he said. ” The student must be three or four years old on September 1st.”
Students fall into one of three categories: 1) students who qualify for an Individualized Education Program (IEP), 2) students who are at risk of entering kindergarten socially, emotionally, or academically unprepared for success, and 3) peer models.
“All four of our classrooms are blended preschool classrooms, meaning they contain a combination of students from each of these three categories,” he said.
Preschool is offered free of charge to all families.
“Our preschool program receives special education and preschool-aged at-risk funding administered by Kansas Department of Education,” he said. “We also receive funding from the Kansas Preschool Pilot Grant and the Early Childhood Block Grant. These four funding sources cover most of our preschool expenditures and keep the program free for families.”
The mission of Fort Scott Preschool Center is to create a school environment that partners families, the school, and the community to build a foundation for lifelong learning.
There are five preschool teachers – four classroom teachers each licensed to teach early childhood special education and one part-time intervention teacher.
“We have eight classroom paraeducators,” he said. ” Our classrooms are adequately staffed as we finish the school year, but we will need to hire one or two additional paras next fall as some of our current paras transition into other roles.”
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