Sycamore Taxpayer

Preschool uses district facilities

There is no reason why taxpayers should be paying for 48 “regular” three and four year old preschoolers.

Preschool is not the same as Early Start. Preschool is for “regular” 3 and 4 years old, while Head Start is for disadvantaged and disabled youngsters.

Sycamore offers Preschool to 48 kids through a lottery every January. Not all district kids are offered this taxpayer subsidized child care service. About 600 other community kids stay at home or their parents send them to a private child care service like Kinder Care or a local church with no bus service.  Why is the didstrict in the pre-school business? It’s not a core function of the publicly funded district.

Currently the Sycamore Preschool is located at Symmes Elementary.  A total of 48 kids attend half day (2 ½ hour) sessions.  A maximum of 12 kids per  ??? classroom utilizes 2 classrooms, 17 employees and 5 buses.  Each classroom has two adults, teacher and teacher aide; there are 5 buses each with 2 adults, driver and monitor, that pick up and deliver the kids daily. The parent pays a $275 weekly tuition per kid.  ????  What is the actual cost? If the tuition does not cover the cost, then increase the tuition or more appropriately ELIMINATE pre-school all together. 

Sycamore school officials say they intend to move the preschool kids to a new Maple Dale facility, if the November 2, 2010 bond issue passes. It wouldn’t surprise me that they would eventually increase the enrollment above 48 students, since there will be vacant rooms at Maple Dale.

Even if the tuition does cover the cost, which I doubt, the two classrooms cannot be used for K-3 grade students.

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Sycamore SD  Pre School tuition is $2,350.
Source: Sycamore Treasurer, 12/27/10.