When the BOCES Preschool program moves into the Geneva N. Gallow and Stephen E. Karopczyc Schools in Island Trees this summer, they will be bringing equipment and services with them that will help to enhance the Island Trees/SCOPE Preschool program, which will now be housed solely in the Gallow building.

Last Spring, the Island Trees Board of Education announced that they would be terminating their lease with the South Shore Christian School and entering into a 10 year lease with BOCES. This change would bring more space and additional revenue to the Island Trees School District. Whereas previously part of the Island Trees/SCOPE Preschool Program had been housed in the middle school and part of it housed in Gallow, the whole preschool program will now be located at Gallow, freeing up the rooms at the middle school for the expanding population at that school. Because BOCES' program is a preschool program and dealing with the same age group, they will be bringing services with them that the Island Trees/SCOPE program will be able to make use of.

Following a visit to the BOCES preschool program at their current location, Superintendent Richard Segerdahl, at this month's Island Trees School Board meeting, enthusiastically presented a report on the services that will now be offered in the district's preschool program.

In the Gallow building, BOCES will house the preschool special education children who will eventually be able to be mainstreamed so they will be able to work with the non-special education preschool students who are in the Island Trees Preschool program.

In his report, Segerdahl presented to the board and the residents, the potential support services, programs, and staff provided by the BOCES Special Education Preschool program to the Island Trees/SCOPE Preschool program at the Gallow School in 2000/2001 school year. The services, which Segerdahl noted, the district's program does not currently offer, include: a preschool playground; an outside tricycle track; cultural arts programs; physical education instructor and age appropriate physical education equipment; the shared services of BOCES' speech, occupational and physical therapists for Island Trees students who may need support; the resources and knowledge of psychologists and social workers when needed; a day and evening custodian to maintain the Gallow building and clean the preschool classrooms at the end of the day; an on-site, full time nurse; the services of a full time principal and assistant principal; a full time security aide; inservicing for the Island Trees Preschool staff; a preschool curriculum that coordinates with the new state standards; instructional material resources; a Xerox machine, an Ellison letter machine and numerous Ellison dies; and building secretaries.

Segerdahl noted that the preschool teaching staff ratio for BOCES is 10 students to one teacher and two aides or six students to one teacher to two aides, whereas the Island Trees Preschool teaching ratio is currently 20 students to one teacher and one aide. "The way we see it happening," said Segerdahl, "is that there will be a lot of collaboration between both classes." He added that because of the small class sizes there will be a lot of sharing of services and equipment at no additional cost to the school district. "There is no way, with what we charge for our program, which is a self-sustaining program, we could ever afford to provide this type of information or any of these types of services that we'll be able to take advantage of," said Segerdahl.

Segerdahl has worked out an approximate budget for the preschool program for the coming school year and has determined that the program will cost parents of the participants approximately $870 for the 100 day program, which breaks down to $8.70 a day for the 2 1/2 hour program, which comes out to $3.48 per hour for district residents or $1070 for 100 days for nondistrict residents. Segerdahl stated, "So now we get all of these services for the same price. So, for us, not only will we improve our program for kids, when all of this is done, we see an opportunity to expand our program and possibly (not this summer, the following summer) to go to four days a week for 4-year olds and also to offer a summer pre-kindergarten program for youngsters who are leaving our program and getting ready to go to the kindergarten."

The superintendent noted that having the BOCES Preschool program connected with the Island Trees Preschool program will be a true benefit to the school district because the services that BOCES is able to provide will help prepare the students even earlier for the new state standards.