Under the Lynbrook School District's proposed budget, universal pre-K will be expanding. Who is eligible and what buildings will host this program?

The Lynbrook School District has received a boost in state funding to offer an additional 90 eligible students full-day prekindergarten in the 2023-24 school year, according to the district’s proposed budget.

The Barry and Florence Friedberg Jewish Community Center and the Tiny Tykes Early Learning Center will be operating the pre-K programs for Lynbrook, which will host a total of 156 students in the upcoming school year.

Both sites will offer a full-day pre-K program that will provide children with the educational experience they need to prepare for kindergarten and the following grades.

Starting in September of 2023, the pre-K program will be expanded into the Tiny Tykes center to accommodate the increase in eligible students for the program. Chrissy Balchaitis, director of early childhood education at Tiny Tykes, will be overseeing the program.

“We’re thrilled that we’re going to be able to collaborate with the Lynbrook School District,” Balchaitis said.

Balchaitis’s goal for the program is to prepare the youngest learners for success in subsequent schooling.

“The cost for full-day preschool is so high, especially on Long Island,” Balchaitis said. “Many families just cannot join a high-quality program, so by having UPK within the Lynbrook district, it’s going to be amazing for children of all socio-economic and racial backgrounds to attend a well-designed, high-quality preschool program.”

With 156 students eligible to enroll, Tiny Tykes will host either one or two full classrooms of students. “We’re going to be following the New York state pre-K foundation curriculum,” Balchaitis said. “That curriculum covers approaches to learning, physical development and health, social and emotional development, cognitive knowledge of world communication and language.”

The JCC’s early childhood director, Andrea Ahearne, who oversees the pre-K program there, said, “It’s a very play-based environment where they are learning through their own experiences and exploring their own environments. A lot of the learning is through play and sensory, as we definitely get messy in pre-K.”

The play activities include painting, arts and crafts, and science experiments using manipulatives. “We also have implemented, this year, the Itchy’s Alphabet phonics program that the Lynbrook school district has used before, but we’ve adopted this program in the JCC as well,” Ahearne said.

She added that in the phonics’ program’s two-year history, she has seen success.

Ahearne has a vision for how she wants this program to progress. “I would absolutely love to see this program grow,” she said. “At the JCC, we house from our infants all the way to pre-K so I would love to see the enrollment with our infants continue with the program up until pre-K.”

Balchaitis is looking forward to help increase opportunity for all students, no matter what racial or financial background they come from. “I’m excited that we’re going to be able to close the equality gap in the universal pre-K program,” she said.

The UPK program will follow a 180-day school calendar and run Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. The program will begin Sept. 7. The district will not provide transportation to the JCC and Tiny Tykes.