New and improved pre-school

August 20, 2012

Parents,

     Some erroneous information appears to be “going around” about the changes to the Shoshone School District pre-school program.  The “rumor” that the school district has said that “no preschool” for our community will be provided, and we have shut it down and walked away is simply not true. In order to improve, we have formed a partnership with another agency providing similar service.  We remain in the preschool business and expect to deliver an improved program to our children.  I would like to take a minute to help clear up the misperceptions by briefly detailing how our joint Head Start/Shoshone School District pre-school program works. 

     The Shoshone School District and Head Start began working together last year in an attempt to best serve our community.  Both parties discovered the obvious redundancy of having two separate pre-schools serving the same community in such close proximity to each other.  After a series of meetings between the two organizations and much research it became clear the best way to serve our children was to join forces in a joint preschool operation.  It was clear this would improve our service over the long run. 

     We committed our partnership understandings into a formal relationship via a written agreement.  This agreement is similar to many other local and national school districts that form partnerships with Head Start.  It is not unusual, in fact it is quite common for these partnerships to develop and prosper.

     While the students will physically attend preschool in the Head Start building, the school district retains involvement.  We will still provide speech and other IEP services.  In fact, we believe these services will be improved in the new partnership.   The district will provide the lead in delivery of these services, as well as work in other capacities with Head Start.

     Both organizations plan to continue to hold “child find” meetings.  Both organizations plan on continuing to work both together and individually to find and serve children.  Both organizations plan to continue to monitor progress of students.   

     Questions about day to day schedules and such should be directed directly to Jay Therber, the Head Start teacher in Shoshone.  IEP and IEP related questions should be directed to Mr. Perry, Shoshone special ed director.  The first year of this partnership will be one of transition, so really for any question, it could be directed to either Head Start or the school district and we will work together to ensure everyone has the questions answered.  We are committed to making this work! 

Thank you,

Rob Waite

Superintendent

Shoshone School District