June 25, 2014
State Rep. Jason Rojas praised Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s announcement that the state is expanding school readiness opportunities for low-income children in East Hartford and Manchester.
“One of the most significant accomplishments of this past legislative session was the expansion of access to quality early childhood education for many Connecticut families,” Rojas said.
Access to early childhood education is critical to ensuring children enter kindergarten with a strong foundation in literacy and numeracy, which will help address the “opportunity gap,” he said.
The expansion was included in Public Act 14-39, which was signed by Governor Malloy in May. The School Readiness Program is a state-funded program which provides high-quality preschool to low-income 3- and 4-year olds in Priority and Competitive School Districts in Connecticut.
“This past session we were able to allocate existing funds to create 1,020 additional School Readiness opportunities for low-income children in 46 municipalities including 39 new slots in East Hartford and 26 in Manchester,” Rojas said.
“I want to thank Governor Malloy for his leadership on increasing access to early childhood education which is an area that he has strongly focused on the last four years,” Rojas said.
To be eligible for School Readiness funding, programs must be accredited or pursuing accreditation by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) or be a Federal Head Start approved program. The additional 1,020 opportunities will become available at the beginning of the upcoming school year.
Priority School districts include the eight towns in the state with the largest population, the top eleven towns with the highest number of children under the temporary family assistance program, and the top eleven towns with the highest ratio of children under the temporary family assistance program. A Competitive School District is a town that has a priority school (a school in which 40 percent or more of the lunches served go to students who are eligible for free or reduced price lunch) or any town ranked in the bottom 50 towns in the state in town wealth.
The expansion of 1,020 opportunities is part of a five-year plan to expand the School Readiness Program to serve a total of 4,010 additional children by 2019. The plan will provide high quality pre-kindergarten for approximately 1,000 additional children for each of the first three years and 500 children during each of the last two years of the plan.