For the past several years the Cinnaminson School District has been working hard to expand its tuition-free, full day preschool for 3 and 4-year olds, which experts say gives youngsters a vital foundation for their future education, including early literacy and basic math skills.
It also gives youngsters an environment where they can learn how to share, cooperate and communicate with others at an early age. Due to high demand, Superintendent Stephen M. Cappello has reached out to childcare providers and private schools for more classroom space.
“It will be great to have the preschool students here,” said Westfield Friends Head of School Margaret Haviland, who will rent out two classrooms to the school district beginning this September.
Other sites already providing classrooms include the Middle School, Temple Sinai, Cinnamon Sticks Learning Center, the Learning Experience, Newman Early Learning and Children of America.
“We will have 30 students, 15 in each classroom,” said Haviland, adding that normal hours for the preschool program are 9:30 a.m. to 3:15 p.m., but Westfield Friends, on the corner of Riverton Road and Route 130, will extend the hours in the morning starting at 7:30 a.m. and in the afternoon until 5:30 p.m.
Although the youngsters will be separated from preschool students already attending the private school, they will be able to use the same playground and participate in events such as field trips and fire drills together.
The school district was one of 16 state school districts to receive preschool expansion aid, getting $290,280 so it could offer full-day preschool at no cost to families in the township. In fiscal year 2024, the district received the second round of preschool funding for fiscal year 2024, building on the state’s $25-million investment for universal pre-K across the state.
The tuition-free preschool program is aligned with the New Jersey Preschool Teaching and Learning Standards that address all domains of learning, and it is designed to provide a whole-child approach that promotes a child’s long-term development and growth.
“We rent out the space to the district. We are expanding the two rooms in the Middle School to meet state guidelines,” said Haviland, adding that the Cinnaminson students will have their own bathroom facilities.
Haviland, who has been at Westfield Friends for seven years, is very proud of recent fundraising projects that so far this year have raised $850,000 for the second oldest Quaker school in New Jersey founded in 1788 and teaches students from preschool to eighth grade. Moorestown Friends School was founded three years before in 1785.
Currently Westfield Friends is hosting its annual Summer Camp, open to all Cinnaminson residents, and it runs through Aug. 14. Last week, a group of youngsters and counselors were walking up Riverton Road to Wood Park to get outdoors and enjoy the sunshine.
Haviland is proud of the eighth grade students who graduated in June, who will be attending a variety of high schools including the Burlington County Institute of Technology, Camden Catholic, and the Crefeld School in Chestnut Hill, PA.
And she is thrilled to be welcoming to classes of preschoolers from the Cinnaminson School District this September.
Westfield Friends Head of School Margaret Haviland displays one of the two classrooms on Tuesday morning, June 30, which will be used this September by the Cinnaminson School District to help expand its preschool program.
