New preschool curriculum purchase approved

NEW LONDON – The New London Board of Education approved the purchase of Three Cheers for Pre K, a new curriculum for the New London School District’s 4K students, at a total cost of $25,574.
The approval came at the board’s March 11 meeting.
At the meeting, Tamela McCartney, director of Teaching and Learning for the School District of New London, told the board that the district’s 4K team spoke to her at the beginning of the year about the resources available to 4K students. She said the resources are 10 years old and outdated.
“And really lack the literacy framework that we require in order to make sure that our kids are more ready for kindergarten,” McCartney said.
Over the course of the school year, McCartney said a team of teachers worked to “identify, analyze, and select a resource that they think will actually make a big difference for our kids, provide consistency across our 4K program, and be a guide for them, making sure they can both teach and assess our 4K students in a way that is meaningful.”

The resource that the teachers chose was Three Cheers for Pre K, McCartney said.
“It is play-based curriculum, which is really important at that 4K level because they learn more from playing with something than they will by sitting down and doing a worksheet,” McCartney said.
She added that the curriculum is also skill-based and structured around quality children’s literature. It is also available in Spanish.
McCartney said she has communicated with another school district who is using the Three Cheers for Pre K curriculum and that district said it is working well for them.
The cost for the curriculum would amount to a total of $25,574. This is broken down as follows: a six-year comprehensive package of $4,291 for five classrooms would be $21,457; program activation and professional development would be $2,400; and shipping and handling would be $1,716.
It was also stated in the Topic Summary Sheet that there may be additional costs associated with assuring the classrooms have what students need.
The Three Cheers for Pre K curriculum is from the same company that the district received its high school English curriculum from, McCartney said.