Tinton Falls plans for pre-K expansion
District projects 30 children will be eligible
BY LAYLI WHYTE Correspondent

Tinton Fall's public school district is awaiting the goahead from the state Department of Education (DOE) to proceed with its state-mandated preschool expansion plan.

District Superintendent John Russo said that to make room for 30 3- and 4-year-olds in time for the 2009-10 school year, two classrooms at the district's Swimming River School have been set aside.

"We've been working closely with county and state officials," Russo said in an interview last week, "and the next step is for them to come and physically look at the space."

Russo said the proposed space must meet certain standards set by the state, including area, having a sink in the room, as well as a bathroom with the correct-size fittings for the preschoolers, either in the classroom itself or immediately adjacent.

"The classrooms we are proposing do not exactly meet the required square footage," said Russo. "It's very close, but not exact, so we'll have to apply for a waiver for size."

Swimming River School currently is home only to the district's fourth and fifth grades, but Russo said it was important to him that the program remain within the district, despite the possibility offered by the DOE that districts can send preschool students to other districts.

"The state allows for a variety of options," he said, "including working with private providers or forming partnerships with other public school systems. We looked at some of our options, but I feel that if we are required to provide this education to our students, then we should at least keep it under our complete control."

District Board of Education member Michael Laffey said at the Dec. 15 board meeting that he did not share Russo's belief that it is necessary to keep the preschool program within district, and he favored sending the students to attend the program offered by Neptune public schools.

"The program in Neptune is very impressive," said Russo, "but we're going to do our best to educate our children in our community here in Tinton Falls. We haven't completely ruled out sending our students elsewhere, but I would like to see us with control over our own program."

The preschool expansion was mandated as part of the School Funding Reform Act of 2008, giving districts until the beginning of the 2009-10 school year to begin the task of providing preschool education to all 3- and 4-year-olds whose families qualify for free or reduced lunch, and whose children are therefore deemed to be at risk.

According to the DOE Web site, this mandate arose from the results in Abbott districts, which have been required for many years to provide preschool to all atrisk children.

"Years of research and our experiences in the Abbott school districts have shown that high-quality preschool for at-risk children is the single most productive step we can take to improve the quality of education in our state," the DOE Web site states. "When at-risk children attend high-quality preschool, they enter kindergarten more ready to learn. The gap between these children and their more economically privileged classmates is dramatically reduced."

Russo said the DOE uses a formula to predict the number of at-risk children, and using that formula, the Tinton Falls district must provide preschool education to 41 students.

Districts throughout the state have five years in which to phase in the program, and because at this point the Tinton Falls district has been able to free up only two classrooms for the program, with the maximum number of students in a preschool classroom being 15, the first year of the program will be able to accept only 30 students.

Russo said that once state and county officials have approved the classroom space, the next step will be to find the most at-risk children within the community and begin to register them. Simultaneously, the district must also search for certified teachers and teachers' aides for each classroom.

The district already provides preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds with learning and physical disabilities, and Russo said that he hopes to use this expanded preschool program as an opportunity to integrate the special education classes with the general education classes.

"We will be looking at ways to integrate over the next few years," he said.

Russo said that recently, since the beginning of the 2008-09 school year, the district has experienced a population growth.

"We've seen some growth in terms of student population this year," he said, "and we expect to see more growth in the next few years."

Among the reasons for this expected growth are the closing of Fort Monmouth in 2011, which would open up a considerable piece of land in Tinton Falls for development, and the 2010 privatization of 300 existing housing units on Naval Weapons Station Earle.

The housing on Earle is located within the borders of Colts Neck, but for nearly two decades Tinton Falls has educated the children of U.S. Navy personnel stationed on that base. The district is currently engaged in a lawsuit with the Colts Neck Board of Education, in which it denies any obligation to educate civilian children living on Navy property.