ADDISON COUNTY — Act 166, a law passed by the Legislature in 2014, mandates that Vermont school districts provide 10 hours/week for 35 weeks (school-year) of pre-kindergarten to 3-, 4- and 5-year-old children (not in kindergarten) at no cost to families.
More information on the pre-kindergarten programs available and in the works is at the websites of each of the local supervisory unions: Addison Northwest is at anwsu.org, Addison Northeast is at anesu.org and Addison Central is at acsu.org. ANeSU is already working on pre-K offerings (see story here).
In order to ensure that there are enough spaces in existing programs (school-based and private child care programs), the child advocacy organization Building Bright Futures is collecting information about every family’s interest in preschool programming. Addison County residents who would like to take the survey should go online to www.surveymonkey.com/r/ACUPreK.
Print copies of the survey are going out through playgroups, partner providers, schools and libraries, but organizers said it will be easiest to get data supplied through the online survey.
All survey responses are due by Oct. 15.
“Part of the reason for this parent survey is to identify what types of programs families most need and want next year,” said Meg Baker, Building Bright Futures universal pre-K coordinator for Addison County. “We hope that this will enable us to fully serve all ACSU, ANeSU and ANwSU 3-, 4- and 5-year-old children (not in kindergarten) in prequalified programs by next year.”