MILLINOCKET, Maine — Granite Street School sixth-graders will move to Stearns Junior/Senior High School in September to make room for the school system’s first pre-kindergarten program, officials said Monday.
Millinocket School Department officials are working with the Maine Department of Health and Human Services to license the pre-kindergarten program and to outfit Granite Street with the proper furniture and equipment, Superintendent of Schools Frank Boynton said.
School leaders don’t expect any difficulties in adding about 40 sixth-graders to the junior high level, where they will have better access to school programs not available at Granite Street, according to Michael Jewers, school board chairman.
“This would be a perfect setup for [sixth-graders] instead of them having to be bused from Granite to Stearns,” Jewers said Monday. “I think it is something that a lot of schools around the state have done.”
School districts in Maine are not required to offer pre-kindergarten programs, but some have been since 2012 with aid from about $500,000 in federal grants administered to 12 schools through the Maine Department of Education. The programs, state officials have said, come with a host of benefits.
Besides helping state public schools offset declining enrollments, the programs help students acclimate sooner to learning in group settings. Research shows that a high quality pre-kindergarten can reduce a child’s chances of being held back in school, needing special education services and being incarcerated, officials have said.
Pre-kindergarten also allows parents to work and can set children on a path to a higher paying career, officials have said.
Millinocket school officials who briefed middle-schoolers’ parents on the plan found them to be receptive to it, Boynton said.
The school board voted 4-0 on April 7 to approve the move. Board member Margaret Manzo was absent.
Sign-ups for the pre-kindergarten program are ongoing. Student screenings for the program will occur on May 7, Boynton said. So far, about 25 4-year-olds are expected in September, making it likely that two rooms at Granite Street will be devoted to the program.
State requirements allow no more than 16 students per classroom, Boynton said.
The system’s overall enrollment is 502 students for the 2014-15 school year, according to the Maine Department of Education. That is a decline of 153 students from the 2006-07 school year.