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Fort Wayne Community Schools presents preschool growth and funding squeeze in early learning update
Summary
District early learning leaders told the board the district now runs more than 55 preschool classrooms, serves about 1,200 pre-K students with 300 on waiting lists, and faces funding cuts to state voucher programs that will require creative local responses.
District early learning leaders on the Fort Wayne Community Schools board agenda described steady program growth and a tightening funding picture that could constrain expansion of free, full-day preschool.
Katie Zigler, the district's manager of early learning, and Rian Fertile, an assistant director of special education, told trustees the district now operates more than 55 preschool classrooms, many of them NAEYC-accredited or American Montessori Society-affiliated, and that the programs are rated PTQ level 4 under Indiana's quality system.
"This year alone, we have 1,200 pre-K students within the district," Zigler said, adding that the district maintains long waiting lists and has space for many more children. Fertile said the special-education pre-K count on the district's December…
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