Wicomico schools describe mixed-delivery pre-K rollout, say private partners are key to meet demand
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Summary
Wicomico County Public Schools presented a mixed-delivery pre-K enrollment model that integrates four private child-care partners into the district registration portal and reported 697 tier-1 children served in an attendance snapshot, underscoring public-school classroom capacity limits.
Melissa Eiler, Wicomico County Public Schools’ supervisor of early childhood education, told the board that the district has built a mixed-delivery model to expand access to pre-kindergarten for tier 1 children — students who qualify by poverty, homelessness, receipt of special education services or limited English proficiency. Eiler described four private child-care partners participating in the program (God’s Little Angels, the Jordan Center, Step Ahead Learning Center and Laugh and Learn Center) and said parents can now select private partners through the district’s registration portal.
Eiler said the system coordinates transportation, attendance reporting and MSDE-aligned early learning assessments so children served in private settings feed into the district’s kindergarten enrollment data. She described training and professional development for private teachers, digital report cards for those providers and the enrollment office working inside private-provider offices to teach attendance and reporting practices.
The district provided a snapshot showing 697 tier-1 children served at a 9:30 a.m. attendance check on the cited day; public programs accounted for 665 of those enrollments while the district’s overall pre-K enrollment that day was 750. Eiler said the public schools would need roughly two additional classrooms to absorb the unmet need and that private partners are therefore essential to meet current capacity constraints.
Board members asked about implementation challenges tied to Pillar 1 of the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future. Eiler identified space, staffing pressure on early childhood coaches and recruiting private providers as ongoing issues and said the district’s Judy Centers, coaches and special education staff are supporting the effort. She also said the district plans to increase three-year-old programming at Judy Center sites and to expand community playgroups to prepare more children for kindergarten.
Eiler closed by thanking Superintendent’s office staff and early childhood team members named during the presentation for their role in the rollout. The board did not take formal action on the presentation.
