'Great day to be a Rocket': Rochester receives Smart Start grant to expand preschool access

Just six years ago, preschool access was a considerable hurdle for many parents and students in Rochester School District.

Back then, Rochester CUSD director of special education Jennifer Shaw said the district only offered one morning preschool session and one afternoon session. That number has since grown to six classrooms, now serving 180 students ages three to five.

Through a $312,000 state grant over the next two years, the district will use the funds to add a pre-kindergarten teacher and aide, parent liaison, and two half-day pre-kindergarten classes. It was a "great day to be a Rocket," said Rochester Superintendent Dan Cox.

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"We can now offer preschool to at-risk students, and those receiving special education services in addition to tuition-based students," Shaw said at a press conference held at Rochester Elementary School on Thursday. "With the addition of Smart Start grants, we'll have more opportunities for our students and for their families."

Rochester schools officials joined Gov. JB Pritzker and local state legislators to tout the success of year one of the Smart Start Illinois initiative. Rochester, along with Springfield Schools District 186, received funding.

The goal for this year was to add 5,000 slots, which the state surpassed by adding 5,886 seats to public preschools lacking openings across the state. By 2027, the Pritzker administration plans to end preschool deserts by adding 20,000 slots — aiming to provide universal preschool access to every three and four-year-old in Illinois.

Pritzker has barnstormed the state championing the program this week, following his stop in Rochester with another news conference in Peoria later Thursday.

"It's maybe the most important investment that we can make in government, period, end of sentence," the governor said. The initiative is his signature item in this year's state budget. "You want to change the trajectory in a positive way of the population of state invests in the very youngest children."

The first year of the $250 million initiative included an additional $75 million to the Early Childhood Block Grant— a program administered by the Illinois State Board of Education to expand preschool access.

“This is a victory for Illinois, for the nearly 6,000 Illinois children and families that are being served and we're not yet done," said Tony Sanders, ISBE state superintendent. “We're going to keep going until we transform every preschool into places where all of our youngest learners have the opportunity to learn and to thrive.”

Other investments through the initiative include $130 million towards early childhood workforce compensation contracts, $40 million for early intervention programs allowing for a 10% rate increase for providers and $5 million to expand the Illinois Department of Human Services Home Visiting Program.

Continuation of the initiative, a "high priority" of the governor's, is contingent on a funding renewal in the next fiscal year starting in July. Pritzker will reveal how much he wants the state legislature to invest in Smart Start ahead of his State of the State address on Feb. 21.

Reporter Hope Gadson of The State Journal-Register contributed to this report.

Contact Patrick M. Keck: 312-549-9340, pkeck@gannett.com, twitter.com/@pkeckreporter.

This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Illinois adds 5,800 preschool seats in first year of Smart Start plan