The Marshwood School District is gearing up to offer a full-day pre-school program by 2026 in response to a new state law. The change is “a great thing” but could cost the district around $500,000, the superintendent said.
The legislation, which went into effect Oct. 25, aims to increase public pre-school opportunities in Maine. The state has set a 100% district compliance goal for September 2026. Today, 79% of the state’s districts offer some form of public pre-school, including the Marshwood district, which has offered half-day pre-kindergarten for decades.
Superintendent John Caverly offered back-of-the envelope figures regarding potential space and money considerations at the Nov. 15 school board meeting. The extended day could mean “three to four full-day pre-k program classrooms at Eliot [Elementary], and four to five at the Central School,” he said.
The cost of the enhanced pre-k could be close to $500,000, given state mandated ratios for students to teachers and education technicians, he told the board.
The district’s half-day program is now subsidized by the state for roughly half of the total calculated operating costs, or about $615,720, according to district Financial Manager Ryan Cormier. The cost of staffing alone for the current half-day program is $618,750. No additional subsidies are available for when the district’s program is expanded to full day, Cormier said.
The district’s pre-k enrollment for 2023-2024 is 135 students, 30 of them from nearby districts that do not have a pre-k program. MSAD 35 will lose that enrollment and thus some of its subsidized funding once those districts develop their own programs.
It is likely, however, that the district will gain some Eliot and South Berwick students whose parents previously were unable to take advantage of a half-day program due to work or other schedule conflicts, Caverly said.
Despite the potential challenges, he said, the change overall is “a great thing for kids” and something that “everyone, from an educational standpoint, would see the value in.”
