Lawrence awards UPK contract to St. Joseph’s College

Lawrence School District’s Universal Pre-Kindergarten program for the 2012-13 school year will be staffed by graduates of St. Joseph’s College’s educational program.

Following a nearly yearlong selection process, St. Joseph’s was officially awarded the one-year contract at the district’s Board of Education meeting on July 3. The state grant, which is renewed on an annual basis, is $560,000. Lawrence’s cost to run the program was exceeding that amount.

By bringing in newly graduated and less veteran teachers and teacher aides, the district seeks to trim its costs and maintain the UPK program. Lawrence redeployed six of the nine teachers to the district’s elementary schools and three retired. Keeping costs down will also help the district offset a decline in revenue and a rise in salary hikes and health insurance, officials said.

Based on district figures, pre-K teachers were costing between $75,000 and $100,000 each per year and a teacher aide costs $20,000. Lawrence had nine teachers and nine teacher aides manning the program and that ratio will remain the same through the collaboration with St. Joseph’s.

“We did a lot of work involving the selection process of the universities,” said Dr. Ann Pedersen, the district’s assistant superintendent for Academic Affairs, who is also the principal of Number Four School, where the UPK program is housed.

Pedersen said that district officials visited Farmingdale, Hofstra and the Freeport center at least three times and had several universities submit proposals.

“The competition was keen,” said Dr. Mary Fritz, director of the Universal Pre-K program for St. Joseph’s Child Study Department. St. Joe’s serves the Freeport and Patchogue-Medford school districts.

Fritz said that after St. Joseph’s was selected, Pedersen showed her the stack of proposals that Lawrence received. “It was a foot high,” Fritz said.

All the teachers hold master’s degree disciplines such as literacy cognition and multiple certifications, including general education and special education. The teachers and teacher aides have four certifications; no other agency could match that kind of preparation,” Fritz said.

The process included St. Joseph’s selecting what Fritz called the “top tier” graduates and “highly trained” people and giving those recommendations to Lawrence. Pedersen and other district officials will interview those prospective candidates. “Four of them have been through a year of Pre-K as teaching assistants and have very impressive resumes,” said Pedersen, who added that one potential teacher has experience teaching autistic children.

Disturbed about the outsourcing of the UPK program, teachers and parents made their concerns known at a district town hall meeting in March. Atlantic Beach resident David Sharin said previously he was happy with the program — two of his children attended UPK and a third is another school year away from attending — but is worried about the skill level of the new teachers. “I don’t know what to expect from the new hires and don’t know what kind of experience they have,” he said at that meeting.

However, Fritz said that the program includes constant supervision, evaluation and staff development and calls for teachers submitting their lesson plans daily, while it is required that teachers send a brief newsletter home to the parents about class activities. “I would say the people who would taking these jobs are well prepared and well supervised, and will be constantly upgraded in what they do.”