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Money from United Way opening up preschool opportunities in QC

A grant from United Way is going to create 80 additional preschool slots for students in the 2015-2016 school year. Scott Crane, President of United Way of the ...

A grant from United Way is going to create 80 additional preschool slots for students in the 2015-2016 school year.

Scott Crane, President of United Way of the Quad Cities Area, said the organization is investing $150,000 into preschool programs in the Davenport Community School District and the YWCA of the Quad Cities.

"The goal is to get more kids enrolled in preschool," said Crane. "It's going to target those kids that are unable to participate in the programs because there are certain barriers preventing their parents from getting the kids enrolled."

According to a study done by the Davenport School District, 48-percent of kindergarteners in Davenport Schools don't receive preschool education.

"We get phone calls from principals asking if it's okay for [the students] to come back and do a year of preschool," said Tammy Conrad, principal of Children's Village West. "We used to think kindergarten was so advanced, [but] now kindergarten is what first grade used to be, and preschool is that new kindergarten."

That's why United Way is stepping in with the $150,000 grant.

According to Crane, $100,000 will go towards Children's Villages of the Davenport Community School District. $40,000 will be given to Jefferson Elementary and another $40,000 will go to Filmore Elementary, creating a new classroom at each of the two schools, and providing full-day wrap-around services for 20 students at each site. The other $20,000 will be used for scholarship support towards 10 other students not involved in preschool programs (such as transportation costs, fee assistance, and tutoring services.)

Crane also confirmed that $50,000 will be given to the YWCA of the Quad Cities, located in Rock Island, creating an additional classroom that will provide morning preschool services for 30 children and daycare services for 10 of those children.

"We know that the more you invest in the early childhood education of a particular child, the better likelihood that they're going to be successful," said Crane.

Katie Furlong, who teaches four-year-olds at Children's Village West, said she does a lot to prepare her students for kindergarten.

"They [learn] the basic rules like how to sit at the carpet, how to attend to a fifteen-20 minute lesson," said Furlong. "I'm introducing them to every area from social, emotional, all the way to literacy and math and handwriting, social studies and science, and giving them a jump-start in all of the different curriculum in those areas."

Furlong said without a preschool background, students in kindergarten are extremely behind their fellow classmates in their education.

"Many of my students can already count to a hundred, and they're already writing  the beginning and ending sounds of words, compared to kids that have had no exposure, who don't even know the letters or the sounds or the difference between a letter or a number," said Furlong.

The grant from United Way has been approved, and will go into effect for the next fiscal school year.

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