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Lansing Schools receives $3M to expand Kindergarten Readiness Program
Posted: October 05, 2011 - 10:30 AM
In a time when most of the news has been negative for school districts, Lansing Schools recently received some notably good news for parents, students and teachers with a $3 million dollar grant from the State of Michigan to expand their Kindergarten Readiness Program.
The program will add seven classrooms this year, growing to a total of 28. That makes Lansing’s the second largest Kindergarten Readiness Program in the state.
“It’s good to be able to help our families,” says Director of Early Childhood Education and Bilingual Education for Lansing Schools Sergio Keck. “Our goal and is to have all students ready to be achieve, and in order for that to happen, they have to start with a strong base.”
That base will be built with the help of 16 new highly skilled early childhood education employees who will be hired to staff the seven new classrooms. Each room with have a teacher and instructional assistant with an student-to-adult ratio of no more than eight to one.
“This gives students the opportunity to have one-on-one time with their teachers,” says Keck. “We can give them a lot more individual attention in this program than when they get into the regular classrooms.”
The $3 million dollar grant will fund the program for one year and will serve more than 500 local families. The seven new classrooms will be located across three different Lansing Schools facilities and are expected to begin in mid-October.