District hopes to add more preschools

OREM — Two five-year-old preschoolers practice with their fingers writing their names into huge dollops of shaving cream. When Scarlet Noorlander finishes the letters in her first name, her teacher, Amber Hovik, gives a cheer.

"You did it," Hovik says. "That looks very nice. Way to go."

Hovik, who teaches preschool at Westmore Elementary School, hopes by the end of the year her students will be able to identify and write all the letters in the alphabet and identify shapes such as a rhombus and oval.

Such skills are necessary for kindergarten, which is more academically rigorous than ever, she said.

"(Preschool) is almost like kindergarten that was 10 years ago," Hovik said.

Westmore is one of eight elementary schools in the Alpine School District with a preschool program. All eight of those schools receive Title I money for low-income children, which means the federal government picks up the tab for the program.

To be sure, the preschools are popular — and have long waiting lists. Ten children are waiting for an opening for preschool at Westmore.

Now, Alpine school leaders, convinced that preschool helps children become more prepared socially and academically for kindergarten, want to add preschool programs to some of the other 43 elementary schools. If the plan is realized, the classes would start this fall.

"We're looking at expanding our preschools to non-Title I schools, probably 4 or 5 non-Title I schools," said Kathy Porter, an Alpine District administrator. "They'll probably be tuition-based, with possibly a sliding-scale tuition so low-income families would pay a lower rate."

Utah is one of about 10 states that does not have a state-funded, statewide preschool program for children without special needs, said Sarah Yerman, preschool-kindergarten transition specialist with the Utah State Office of Education.

A dozen of the state's 40 school districts have preschool programs and many Utah children attend the federally funded Head Start, preschool co-ops or private programs before they begin kindergarten.

In December, state education officials addressed the idea by approving new pre-kindergarten guidelines.

"There weren't any preschool guidelines (previously)," Yerman said. "We have a lot of schools with preschools; the (Utah) Office of Child Care is also using them (the new guidelines)."

Interest in preschool isn't new, Yerman said. But No Child Left Behind — the Bush administration's education plan — and the accompanying discussion about the so-called "achievement gap" between ethnic minority, low-income and English-language learning children and their white, middle- and upper-class and English-speaking peers has renewed interest in kindergarten readiness.