RSG | Press Page: Funding, space are city’s twin preschool needs

Local and state elected officials as well as community leaders all agreed that New Britain needs more preschool slots at a roundtable discussion Wednesday morning, but acknowledged the city is still hard pressed to find space for roughly 2,000 3- and 4-year-olds.
"Its nice to have so many people in support of early childhood education," said Merrill Gay, director of the New Britain Discovery Collaborative, a nonprofit group formed to spearhead early childhood education initiatives.

The discussion, organized by the collaborative, brought together local and state elected officials and community and business leaders.

According to Gay, the statistics speak for themselves. Less than half of New Britain’s children attend preschool, compared to 75 percent of children statewide. Gay also cited statistics such as 72 percent of the city’s fourth-graders falling short of the state goal score on the Connecticut Mastery Test as the consequences of no school before kindergarten.

"When kids enter kindergarten not knowing what their names look like, not being able to hold a crayon, they are behind," he said to the audience at Central Connecticut State University’s Institute for Technology and Business Development on Main Street.

Most of New Britain’s state and local leaders agreed that more needed to be done.

"In the business community, it is not that difficult to connect pre-kindergarten with economic development," said Chamber of Commerce President William Millerick.

With the movement at the state level to dramatically increase funding for those preschool slots, New Britain might have to act quickly.

Janice Gruendel, a senior policy adviser to Gov. M. Jodi Rell on early childhood education, spoke to the group about how quickly things were moving since Rell took office this summer.

The governor will unveil her funding initiatives in her budget, but New Britain is expected to get millions of dollars more from the state for school readiness.

"If we invest all this money, then we need to make sure there is a plan in place for the local level with these children," Gruendel said.

Representatives from New Britain agreed, and also admitted they are behind in finding enough space for the 2,039 children who do not attend preschool now.

"We’re so tight on space as it is," said Fran Wolski, vice president of the Board of Education. The school system has looked at various buildings in the city, but many of them do not fit the building code qualifications for young children, she said.

"We have been looking at space for a while ..and we need the community’s input on this. We need to start immediately," she said.

Gay agreed.

"I’m afraid we would be in a situation where we would have to say to the governor, ‘thank you, but we’re not ready for that now,’" he said.

Mayor Timothy Stewart has started a building task force that brings together school board members and the Common Council to address pressing facility needs.

The challenge will be to move fast enough to be prepared for funding from the state, which is why some elected officials agreed to meet again to further discuss space needs, Gay said.