Opinion ID: 2332761
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Community Outreach

Text: There is apparently some misunderstanding about the DOE requirement that the districts plan for seventy-five percent of their anticipated preschool enrollment (based on the number of children in kindergarten the previous year) instead of 100 percent or full enrollment. The plaintiffs claim that all of the Abbott children must be accommodated and that to plan for only seventy-five percent is to renege on the State's commitment. But the Commissioner has allowed individual districts to develop their own enrollment projections based on reliable indicators and, more important, has stated unequivocally that every child who seeks to enroll in preschool will be accommodated. The issue is not enrollment numbers for planning purposes, but rather, whether there is a need for community outreach to inform parents about the availability of preschool for three- and four-year old children in the Abbott districts. Amicus curiae Newark Emergency Committee to Save Childcare (the Committee) has expressed its concern that: The DOE has failed to require that significant efforts be made to recruit as many children as possible into the Abbott preschool program. Based on the Committee's member centers' experiences, the children who are hardest to reach are often the ones who need high quality preschool the most. An aggressive recruitment campaign is critical. We have emphasized the need for assessment and evaluation of preschool programs in the SNDs. We expect that existing enrollments can now be reviewed and that low enrollments will trigger a determination whether parents in the community are aware of the district's preschool programs. If parents are not, the district must make concerted outreach efforts to improve enrollments; if needed, the Commissioner must make funding available for this purpose through the DOE's supplemental program procedures.