More preschool in Dist. 21

In an effort to provide more day care and early learning opportunities for area children, Wheeling Township Elementary District 21 will be adding at least three more preschool classes by Wednesday, Oct. 1.

The district had an outside agency take an extensive look at its early child care programs. Although the district has always been aware that more preschools were needed, the Illinois Facilities Fund helped break down a plan to bring in more students.

Darian Dorsey, the project manager for the Illinois Facilities Fund, said at a board meeting Thursday that the group has been helping communities in the area that have similar problems.

"Childcare consistently comes up as something that needs funding," she said.

She said many working parents put together haphazard plans that have children going from one person to another on a daily basis, mostly because they can't afford child care.

Much of this has to do with subsidies that are hard to obtain because of copious or challenging paperwork, she said.

Dorsey helped District 21 identify potential locations for more classrooms, looking outside the schools and into churches and the park district.

She said one of the keys is also increasing the number of licensed child care facilities in the area.

The district, through a grant, is able to bring in 80 more students to the early childhood program this year. That program already serves 530 students.

District 21 has also collaborated with Head Start to bring in 40 more students into a third classroom.

The organizers of the district's early childhood program is also training its staff, who often go into homes to help parents, on how to help fill out paperwork to gain subsidies for child care.

The district will continue to work on suggestions that the foundation has laid out.