Dear Beach Park Learning Community,
Beach Park School District #3 has been working toward one of the District Strategic Goals: building and opening a preschool for the Beach Park Community. During the Strategic Planning process, the community expressed a desire to have a preschool available within the school district. Once Strategic Planning was done, the COVID-19 Pandemic hit and the District was awarded ESSER Funds to help support student learning remotely. As part of these funds, the District was able to write into the grant the addition of a preschool building added on to Oak Crest.
As plans for the preschool evolved, the District began partnering with a nationally recognized organization for preschool development, Start Early. Start Early works to create preschool programs in preschool desert areas, Lake County being one of them. While collaborating, the State of Illinois announced the opening of the Preschool for All Grant and additional funds that had been designated for creating, opening, and implementing a Preschool for All program. Once this grant was opened, the District and Start Early determined the next step in opening our preschool would be to allow their experience and expertise in preschool programming to lead the way. We came to a rental agreement with them to utilize our preschool facility for the next two years until they are able to build and open a new preschool to service the Beach Park Community and the surrounding communities in Lake County.
The preschool building will be ready to open in mid to late October this year. Once it is ready, Start Early will rent the space from the District while serving students in our area. After the completion of our two year rental agreement, the District will apply for the Preschool for All Block Grant and open the preschool in the 2025-2026 school year as part of Beach Park School District Programming. Our hope is that after two years, we will be able to acquire more funding and expand our program in order to meet the needs of our students in Beach Park in need of early learning and development.
We are so excited to partner with Start Early as they will support and grow the foundation of our future preschool programming. Please reach out with questions you may have. We appreciate your partnership in growing our Beach Park learning programs.
Respectfully,
Dr. Denise Wilcox, Superintendent