Looking to prepare students for kindergarten and beyond, Moravia Central School District recently revamped its universal pre-kindergarten (UPK) program, and positive results are already being seen.

As recent as last year, the district only had two half-day UPK classes with one teacher. The half-day option presented limitations, as students were present for only three hours per day, making it difficult to provide the desired educational opportunities and outcomes.

Seeking to rectify this challenge, last year the district met with the New York State Education Department to discuss potential funding for the program. When funds were presented to the district, the decision was made to provide a new and improved full-day UPK opportunity.

The additional state funding not only allowed the district to establish a full-day program, but also the opportunity to create a model of UPK education that best supports the academic, social, and emotional growth of the students.

“The state provides a blueprint for the types of things they’d like to see, and we certainly follow those checkpoints,” Director of Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment Ted Love said. “But we also took this opportunity to hire new staff and identify the things needed to make these classrooms state-of-the-art.”

To that end, the program strives to be active and engaging academically while also remaining age-appropriate related to student development.

“Our UPK program provides developmentally appropriate activities to help 4-year-olds prepare for Kindergarten,” Love said. “As the New York State Learning Standards and expectations become more rigorous, making sure our young children have the basic academic and social skills in place to meet these standards is essential.”

With the creation of the full-day program, the district made the decision to implement full math and ELA curriculum into UPK. Topics such as reading and language comprehension are also a part of the daily curriculum, which best sets the students up for success in kindergarten and beyond.

Outside of academic preparation, the UPK program is also trying to support students in the area of social and school readiness.

“Kids need to have social experience in order to develop those social skills,” Love said. “The program will also help students develop their school readiness. Things like knowing how we behave in the hallways, how to attend to their learning in the classroom, and work cooperatively with classmates. A lot of times, we’re seeing that kindergarten students struggle with these school readiness situations. And if kindergarten teachers are needing to focus on teaching students how to learn, then it takes away from the time teaching what needs to be learned.”

Millard Fillmore Elementary School Principal Karen DiVietro echoed those sentiments.

“The teachers have created not only an engaging, welcoming environment for our first-time students, but it is also a place of high academic standards. Our UPK students are learning essential academic and social-emotional skills they will need in kindergarten and throughout their school years,” DiVietro said.

With this in mind, the UPK program at Moravia CSD is treated just like any other grade level at the elementary school. For example, the UPK students participate extracurricular classes such as physical education, art, and music. This allows students to learn from specialized teachers in each area, which will aid their comprehension of each subject moving forward.

The district is cognizant that the early learning programs have the biggest impact on student development. Once a student reaches middle school or high school, significantly more time may be needed to support academic or emotional shortcomings, whereas that same issue could be identified and supported in a fraction of the time in an early learning program.

“I think the benefits of the UPK program really pay off,” Love said. “We’re following a curriculum that is aligned with the rest of curriculum within the elementary school.”

DiVietro said the joy she sees on the faces of the UPK students is a testament that learning can be truly fun.

“I know our UPK program will continue to grow at Millard Fillmore Elementary School and my hope is that all of the children in Moravia can experience the joy of learning as they begin their journey as lifelong learners,” she said.

Superintendent John Birmingham said he couldn’t be more excited for how well the full-day program has gone thus far.

“I couldn’t be more excited to know that it is already making an impact for the students who are in those rooms each day,” said Birmingham.