Preschool program doubles in size

photo by Alexandria Southern Preschooler Lorelei poses as she steps into her preschool classroom in the morning as school starts.

The King’s Academy preschool program, which is strictly for staff children, has grown over the past year. With all the new kids being enrolled, the preschool expanded to additional rooms on the main floor of the lower school building. With the sudden growth in preschool aged children, TKA created a new and improved layout to ensure productivity for the preschool and elementary students, allowing them to remain in the same vicinity of their respective areas. 

“The main difference that has happened to the preschool is instead of three rooms, we now have five rooms available to use,” preschool staff member Cathy Kelso said. “The number of babies in preschool has increased on the Tuesday/Friday session to practically double from the previous years.”  

In order to keep the preschool close together, the rooms surrounding the zero-to-two year old classrooms were made into new preschool areas. Doing this allowed the athletic facility office to be moved to the upper part of the gym making it closer to the middle and elementary classrooms. 

“The space is pretty tight around the school as you can imagine. We did have two conference rooms at the lower building though,” Principal Dr. Lynn Sanders said. “So we used them, because they were conference rooms, not classrooms. We were okay with the athletic directors picking one of the conference areas for their new office space, and they ended up picking the one upstairs. So then we turned their old office into one of the new baby rooms.” 

The lower grades of the elementary school moved their reading groups to a different room allowing quiet and productive study for the students and a new crib space for preschool. Allowing quiet and productive study for the students and a new crib space for the preschool.

“Basically, the only difference for the teacher and students moving is the atmosphere," Mrs. Kelso said.

I would say that the number of preschoolers will ebb and flow as some age out into elementary school and then are potentially replaced by new ones, but not necessarily. Depending on the staff and if the school is planning on hiring young teachers, the preschool is expected to continue thriving. Luckily, TKA has been blessed with enough room in the lower level to accommodate any new changes that need to be made.

“I think it's just a matter of who has little ones and how many go on to kindergarten or how many babies come so we can adjust,” Dr. Sanders said. “If you're looking for a job as a teacher, and you have a little one, knowing that there's a place on campus that you can bring your preschooler to is a perk that we love being able to offer.”