Greenwood Community Schools will have a preschool to call its own for the first time this summer.
The district will open Timberlings, which will include learning opportunities for both general education and special education students, after the school board approved it at its regular meeting on Tuesday.
The preschool will be housed at Westwood Elementary School, which currently hosts the Early Learning Center, a separate preschool that will move to its own building in Whiteland. The services provided for students will be largely the same as those in the Early Learning Center, although Greenwood schools will have more agency over Timberlings since the district has ownership of the school, said Jill Lambert, director of student services at Greenwood schools.
The preschool will be split into three classes and will serve students ages three to five. One class, dubbed the developmental classroom, will be solely for students with special needs. That class will have about 10 students and be geared toward children who have the greatest developmental needs. Students in the class will work on basic skills, such as taking off their coats and using zippers, Lambert said.
Another class will be considered a flex class, meaning it will be a 50-50 split between general education students and those with special needs. Students with special needs in that class will have a moderate need, but will be able to socialize and work collaboratively with other students in the class.
A third class, called the community classroom will be about 75% students in general education and 25% students in special education. Students with special needs in that class will still have an Individualized Education Plan, or IEP, but will have the least need compared to their counterparts in the flex and developmental classes, she said.
The second and third class will have about 15 and 20 students, respectively, although those numbers are flexible, she said.
In the flex and community classrooms, students will work on a variety of life skills typical for children in any preschool. Children will learn to familiarize themselves with calendars, early learning skills, such as counting and conversation, how to play games cooperatively and how to socialize, Lambert said.
While parents of students who have special education needs will not be required to pay for preschool services — Indiana law requires schools to provide special education services for children ages 3 to 21 — parents of general education students will be required to pay.
For five year olds, who will attend preschool five hours a day, five days a week, the monthly fee will be $225. For three and four year olds, who will attend Timberlings seven and a half hours per week over the course of three days, the monthly fee will be $150, she said.
As part of the school district, Timberlings will be open to Greenwood residents only, as opposed to Early Learning Center, which is open to all Johnson County residents. The registration period has not yet been determined. Greenwood schools will staff three classroom teachers and a paraprofessional, Lambert said.
Having agency over the preschool will be an advantage for Greenwood schools, Superintendent Kent DeKoninck said.
“With the Early Learning Center, they were our partner but they weren’t us. We worked with them quite a bit moving our children in and out, but they weren’t our employees. That’s the great thing about this,” DeKoninck said.
“When parents know it’s run by a school, the parents already have that connection with the school system. We believe it’ll grow quite a bit.”
Providing a welcoming environment for children at an early age is key to making their parents feel safe with their children attending Greenwood schools, Lambert said.
“The biggest benefit of having families introduced to Greenwood schools at three and four is having parents come through our schools, meeting teachers and building principals and understanding our schools are a safe place for kids to go to,” Lambert said. “For a lot of parents, this is the first opportunity to go inside a school, and we want it to be as warm and welcoming as possible.”
