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Westbury Union Free School District expands full‑day UPK, launches kindergarten Scribe cohort
Summary
For the 2025–26 school year Westbury Union Free School District announced 108 full‑day and 36 half‑day UPK seats, districtwide transportation for enrolled scholars, and the first cohort of kindergarten Scribe scholars to keep more students in-district.
The Westbury Union Free School District announced it will offer full‑day Universal Prekindergarten (UPK) for the 2025–26 school year and has opened 108 full‑day seats and 36 half‑day seats, with district‑provided transportation for all enrolled scholars.
District representative (Westbury Union Free School District representative) said the district is "super excited" about the full‑day offering and cited research about early childhood benefits including social‑emotional growth, brain development and academic gains. The district representative said families overwhelmingly favored full‑day UPK when the district sought their input.
The newly appointed UPK coordinator (Westbury Union Free School District UPK coordinator) said one of her roles will be to work with Assistant Superintendent Barnett and with "Mr. Wittig" on curriculum and central registration, and to facilitate articulation between the UPK and kindergarten programs. "I will be working with her, updating her on the progress of our UPK program, along with implementing curriculum instruction to the UPK staff," the coordinator said.
A prekindergarten teacher who said she has taught in Westbury for eight years described the program as "a full comprehensive program" and said full‑day time "offers the children so many more opportunities for building their social skills and academic time in the classroom." Another teacher, identified as the kindergarten Scribe teacher at Park Avenue, said she was "filled with joy" after the first week with the Scribe cohort and said the program aims to integrate those scholars into district classrooms and "give them the foundation for lifelong success in the Westbury School District."
The district representative also stated that Westbury is "one of the very, very few districts in New York state" that can offer both full‑day UPK and transportation for UPK students. The transcript did not provide supporting data for how many other districts offer comparable transportation.
The district did not specify the size of the kindergarten Scribe cohort beyond calling it the "first cohort." The UPK coordinator said she will be involved with recruitment and central registration for UPK enrollment but did not provide registration dates or eligibility details in the recorded remarks.
The announcements follow the district's stated goal of keeping more early‑grade students educated within Westbury schools and of aligning prekindergarten instruction with the kindergarten curriculum. No formal board action or vote on these program details was recorded in the provided transcript excerpt.
