Earlier in the year, Panorama Community School District announced that they would not have their three year old preschool program next year.

Superintendent Kasey Huebner says that after looking at the registration numbers, there weren’t many three year olds in their early development program. He tells Raccoon Valley Radio that that, paired with the interest in a transitional Kindergarten program, is what brought them to the decision to make a switch.

“At the end of the day, we looked at, you know, what’s the end goal is to get kids ready for that kindergarten. And that TK, it’s a transitional kindergarten. It serves as a buffer year for students that maybe aren’t quite ready for kindergarten yet, and so that’s really the deciding factor is, looking at numbers of enrollment for that age. But also, our endgame is to make sure kids are ready for kindergarten, you know, socially, emotionally, behaviorally and academically.”

Huebner mentions that they will still continue their partnership with the Head Start program. He explains that now it’s up to teachers and parents to look at the students and decide whether TK or kindergarten are the correct choice for the student. Huebner adds that every child is different, and they want to make sure that the proper support is there for each and every child that is a student at Panorama.