West Seattle Blog… | Expansion of the Seattle Preschool Program in West Seattle

Eight years ago, a contingent of city leaders traveled to High Point to announce their intention to ask voters to approve taxpayer funding to create the Seattle Preschool Program. At this event, the aspiration was to serve “2,000 children in 100 classrooms by 2018”. The program is growing a little slower than that, reaching 2,000 children this year, but still growing. Today the mayor Bruce Harrel and Department of Early Education and Learning director dr. Dwane Chappelle announced seven additional classrooms and room for 144 more children next year, bringing enrollment to 2,144 and aiming for 2,500 by 2026. Funding now comes from an expanded levy which also includes the college funding, 2018 Families, education, preschool and promise and allows free lessons for many families. Next year, one of the expanded classrooms will be on a site that is already part of the SPP, the Bilingual Preschool Refugee and Immigrant Family Center on Delridge.

Today’s announcement also reminded that applications are open for the next school year – you can go here to find out more about locations and applications. If you need language assistance, you can also call 206-386-1050 or email preschool@seattle.gov.