For the first time since 2013, preschool students may be returning to the Nashville schools campus.

A preschool classroom is being planned at Brown County Intermediate School whenever school can resume.

At the May 21 meeting, school board members unanimously approved transferring BCIS paraprofessional Samantha Prather to be the full-time preschool teacher there.

The BCIS preschool classroom in Nashville will not be an option that parents can choose right away. Rather, it will open for “overflow” of students from Helmsburg, Sprunica or Van Buren elementary schools. There are currently two preschool classrooms in each of those buildings.

When the former Nashville Elementary School was converted to BCIS in 2013, all pre-K through fourth-graders were directed to the outlying elementary schools around the county, leaving no public school option in Nashville for any student younger than fifth grade.

The district has seen some surges of preschool-aged students over the past couple years.

For the 2018-2019 school year, Sprunica Elementary had the largest number of preschool students. For the 2019-2020 school year, Helmsburg had the largest group of preschoolers.

Expanding to BCIS was an effort to meet required ratios of students to teachers in those classrooms, said Superintendent Laura Hammack.

Because of this, applications will not be available specifically for the BCIS site. “This site will be opened when the numbers at our outlying buildings get to a position of meeting or nearly reaching capacity,” Hammack explained.

Seats at the elementary schools must be filled first. Once those seats are filled, Hammack said discussions would happen with families to determine who would best suited having their child attend preschool in Nashville.

Director of Student Learning Debbie Harman added that the classroom could also be used to accommodate classroom overflow for other reasons, like possibly complying with any COVID-19 restrictions once students return to school.

Last year, Harman secured a $100,000 Early Childhood Education Capacity Building grant from the Office of Early Childhood and Out-of-School Learning, a division of the Family and Social Services Administration. That money is what’s being used to help expand access to seats for preschool-aged students in Brown County.

Needs for more early childhood education in the county have been identified over the years. A 2019 Quality of Place and Workforce Attraction Plan ranked early childhood education and child care availability and affordability as the “second-most important amenity and attribute enhancement needed in the county,” Hammack said.

“Greater access to quality birth-to-5 services was identified as a critical need,” she added.

In 2017, data from the Early Learning Advisory Committee showed that Brown County had 244 children enrolled in early learning programs and 34 enrolled in “high-quality programs,” but only 6 percent of the high-quality enrollment available for children with all parents working, Hammack explained.

In 2018, Brown County had 143 4-year-olds and 108 in need of early education or child care, according to the Indiana Early Learning Advisory Committee profile.

During the 2018-2019 school year, 61 students were attending preschool in Brown County schools. Of those, 55 moved up to kindergarten in the fall of 2019-20.

The preschools at Helmsburg, Sprunica and Van Buren elementary schools received Paths to Quality Level 3 certifications as “high quality” programs in March 2019.

With Level 3 certification, Brown County Schools can accept On My Way Pre-K grant dollars. Those grants are awarded to 4-year-olds from low-income families to use at any approved On My Way Pre-K program.

Harman said that the district saw an increase in the number of days preschoolers were in the classroom this past year because of families using On My Way Pre-K dollars.

Hammack said that the BCIS preschool site will go through the same Paths to Quality certification as the other sites in the elementary schools, so at first, it will not be able to accept students who have On My Way preschool grants. To do that, the site must become Level 3 certified.

A full day of preschool in Brown County Schools costs $25; a half-day is $12.

Any parent wishing to learn more about preschool in Brown County Schools can call the elementary schools to leave a voicemail message, Hammack said.