At the September board meeting, RISD Trustees heard a presentation about the district’s growing Pre-Kindergarten program. The academic and long term benefits of Pre-K are well established. Statistically, children who participate in a high quality Pre-K program have substantial advantages over children who do not, including:
- Increased vocabulary, literacy and numeracy
- Increased kindergarten and first grade school readiness
- Increased standardized test scores in EL, MS and HS
- Increased attendance in middle and high school
- Decreased special education placements and grade retention
- Decreased racial academic achievement gaps
- Increased likelihood of completing high school
- Increased likelihood of enrolling in college
- Increased likelihood of employment
- Achieve 25% more lifetime earnings
- Decreased likelihood of relying on public assistance
- Decreased likelihood of incarceration
Additional highlights of the presentation and discussion:
- As RISD’s commitment to offering Pre-K to all district families has grown, the program has expanded from 31 half day classrooms at 19 schools in 2018 to 108 full day classrooms at 34 schools this year.
- The majority of PK classrooms serve 4 year old students (PK4), while additional PK3 classrooms have been added the last few years.
- RISD offers monolingual and one-way bilingual Pre-K programs, and last year opened the first district two way bilingual Pre-K program at Stults Road Elementary.
- In addition to student benefits, Pre-K also introduces school and classroom engagement for parents, with a variety of platforms to help parents understand and support their student’s growth.
- The academic foundation that Pre-K provides is supported by district data. Among emergent bilingual and economically disadvantaged students, RISD student readiness and performance in Kindergarten is higher for students who attended RISD Pre-K compared to students who did not.
- The RISD Graduate profile begins with Pre-K, as curriculum begins placing the building blocks toward successful graduation as early as age 3.
While the state of Texas does not fund Pre-K at the same levels as K-12 students, RISD highly values the importance of Pre-K to the academic and social development of young learners, and remains committed to expanding PK 3 and PK 4 access and opportunities to all district parents.
