SCCPSS celebrating Ga. Pre-K week, start of Little Acorn Academy

SAVANNAH, Ga. (WTOC) - This week, Georgia is celebrating the youngest learners in our schools - the Pre-K students.

Savannah-Chatham County Public School System is bringing in some extra readers to the 4K classrooms this week. Monday WTOC’s Sam Bauman was a guest reader.

The Georgia Pre-K program started up 30 years ago in the state and since then, the program has seen about 2 million little learners come through on their way to start kindergarten.

While the program is not required by the state, they are seeing the interest. About 1,400 students are enrolled in SCCPSS.

This week is not only about celebrating the success of those students, but their teachers.

“So they will be able to have that patience with the attention span of the student, knowing how long they can sit still for a moment, having them rotate throughout the class but also developing those relationships, that is extremely, extremely important for them to have that socialization,” said SCCPSS Interim Director Office of College/Career Readiness Dr. Angie Lewis.

But the state funded 4K program isn’t the only pre-k option in the district.

Tuesday, the Savannah-Chatham County Public School System is introducing the community to its new program - Little Acorn Academy.

District officials say the program is off to a great start this school year and now, they are in the process of adding two additional classes for next school year.

The Little Acorn Academy is a 3-year-old pre-school program funded by the Equity In Education grant from Georgia Power. For their pilot year, they enrolled 22 students who learn in the classroom at Gould Elementary.

The district says this is a great option to not only get the students in the classroom sooner, but also to ease some of the burden of daycare cost and availability, and instead send them to school.

“So the students they learn their ABC’s, they learn their colors, they learn how to spell, so it is a regular school day for these 3-year-old students, so they have an advantage next school year when they enroll in a pre-k program,” Dr. Lewis said.

Enrollment for the Little Acorn Academy is the same at the lottery process for the 4-year-old pre-k students.

They are still working out the logistics, but plan to open up the lottery for 3 and 4-year-olds sometime this winter, in early 2023.

Copyright 2022 WTOC. All rights reserved.