New Pre-School Building Coming to Trumbull

The following is from Cooperative Education Services:

Cooperative Educational Services (C.E.S.), the Regional Education Service Center (RESC) of lower Fairfield County has been running a high quality School Readiness (Pre-School) Program exclusively for children who reside in the City of Bridgeport for the past eight years under the State Department of Education’s School Readiness Grant Program. The enrollment capacity has been limited to 54 students. This C.E.S. program has consistently had an annual “wait list” with more than 100 students.

As an investment in the future of our youth, C.E.S. decided to expand its School Readiness facility to accommodate an additional 36 students to bring its enrollment capacity up to 90. Although there was no State grant for this construction nor any guarantee for State sponsored slots, C.E.S. decided to move ahead with the construction project with the notion that “if we build it, they will come.” The leadership of C.E.S. was thrilled to learn in the spring that additional slots were awarded to the City of Bridgeport who, in turn, has designated 36 of those slots for the expanded School Readiness program facility at C.E.S. at 40 Lindeman Drive in Trumbull, CT.

The construction was completed in time for the opening of the 2014-15 school year. A ribbon cutting dedication of this School Readiness building and program expansion is scheduled for Thursday, October 2 at 3:15 p.m. at 40 Lindeman Drive in Trumbull, CT.

This expansion is part of a multi-faceted Early Childhood initiative by C.E.S. to improve the quality of Early Childhood Education as a means to help close Connecticut’s achievement gap. The initiative has three goals: to expand preschool programs and services at C.E.S.; to provide model preschool programs throughout the region; and to collaborate with area higher education institutions and training programs.

The initiative aims to serve as a model program to be exported to other school districts in the region and throughout the State of Connecticut, strengthen the quality of University training provided to pre-school personnel, and provide high caliber professional development to practicing pre-school personnel. The new construction includes not only additional classrooms, but also mirrored one-way window booths for professionals and those being trained as pre-school personnel to observe high quality early childhood instructional practices.

As part of this initiative, C.E.S. in partnership with Yale University, was recently awarded a U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Educational Sciences (IES) grant to develop an Early Childhood Education Research Alliance to study effective practices in Early Childhood Education. This research alliance will allow school districts in lower Fairfield County (Bridgeport, C.E.S., Norwalk and Stamford) to collaborate with the scientific community in establishing researched-based responses that informs our efforts to develop successful preschool learners and significantly contribute to closing achievement gaps among learners in the region.