Chandlers was approved for the program in September and had until January to get everything up and going.
And when students and teachers came back from Christmas break, the Chandlers preschool doubled.
Instead of having the 3- and 4-year-old students for just a half day, four days a week; the school now has preschool for the whole day for all five days each week.
“Between the ages of zero and five is when the brain grows the most, so this gives us a chance to really work with the children during that time,” Chandlers principal Elisa Brown said.
In order to accommodate all the preschoolers, Chandlers School had to add another classroom and double its preschool staff.
The two classes each have the maximum 20 students along with three adults in each room plus an Early Reading First coordinator that works with students from both rooms.
“The board of education deserves a lot of credit for this because they have really given us some great support,” Brown said.
The all-day preschool is being paid for through a three-year grant so that it can begin using the Early Reading First curriculum.
“The point of the program is to develop reading abilities with age-appropriate activities,” Brown said.
The coordinator of the Early Reading First program at Chandlers is Cindy McCombs.
“The all-day schedule is great for the students because we get twice as much time with them as we did before,” McCombs said.
The change from half-day to full-day preschool
“This is really a great program - it's like manna from heaven,” Chandlers preschool teacher Teresa Akins said. “We just weren't able to do that much with them when we only had them for about three hours a day.”
Akins has been teaching preschool classes at Chandlers School for 17 years and said that it's for everyone to change their routines every once in a while
“Sometimes you get into a rut if you do the same thing for a long time,” she said. “This is really good because it makes us think the box.”
But going to an all-day format didn't come without its challenges.
“We had to make some adjustments,” said Janese Campbell, the school's other preschool teacher. “Naptime was kind of difficult at first, but they got used to it after a few days.”
And having children going down for naps took a bit of getting used to for the rest of the school.
“We had to alter our fire drill schedule,” Brown said. “The time we normally like to have fire drills was right during their nap time, so we had to delay that just a little bit until our preschoolers were awake.”
In addition to Chandlers, other schools that are participating in the all-day preschool Early Reading First Program include Allen County Primary in Scottsville, Irvington Elementary in Breckinridge County and Cumberland Trace Elementary and Warren Elementary - both in Warren County.
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