Almost 400 children are on the waiting list for the Woodson Early Childhood Center, Abilene’s only campus for Head Start and pre-kindergarten students.
As of Tuesday, there were 380 children waiting for a slot to enter the programs.
Currently there are 475 students at the Woodson Early Childhood Center and 350 students at the Locust Early Childhood Center. There are about 130 students in overflow programs at the Day Nurseries of Abilene on Cedar and Ash streets and at Candyland Daycare.
“We place students as soon as we have an opening,” said Principal Cheryl Cunningham.
The students at Woodson and Locust campuses go from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., while students at the satellite locations go only three hours per day.
“We have two pre-K classrooms,” said Patricia Peck, program director at the Day Nurseries of Abilene. “They have such a long waiting list — if children can get into a half-day class it is better than no classroom at all.”
The programs included in the AISD centers are Head Start, prekindergarten, and early childhood special education. The programs serve 3- and 4-year-old children. In most districts, pre-K classes are housed at the elementary schools, but in Abilene they are all housed in the Woodson and Locust Early Childhood centers.
The students must qualify for the free lunch program, be homeless or be the children of military families to qualify for the programs.
Parents never have to pay. If they qualify, the care is free to the family.
As a result, the numbers on the waiting list have been growing over the past several years, Cunningham said.
“The economy may well be having some effect as more people are experiencing lower income levels that might qualify their children for participation,” Cunningham said. “The other big jump in our numbers happened a few years ago when the governor declared all military dependents to be eligible for pre-K.”
Both programs at Woodson and Locust are Title 1 federally funded school-wide programs in which the student population is considered to be “at-risk” based upon enrollment criteria.
The pre-K program is funded by the state as a half-day program; however, pre-K has been extended to a full day using local and Title 1 funding. Title 1 funds are utilized to pay 50 percent of pre-K teachers’ salaries, a parent coordinator, and additional support and professional staff. Funding from the state, based on average daily attendance for each student, comes to about $2,650 annually per child.