Now that the State Departments of Education and Social Services have announced the availability of “school readiness” preschool scholarship grants for income eligible families, Family Centers will open a preschool classroom for 13 children on Monday, February 6th in its licensed child care facility located at Armstrong Court. Working from waiting lists from Family Centers' Head Start and early childhood education programs and in collaboration with the Greenwich Public Schools and the Town's Health Department, Family Centers has notified qualified working parents that these school readiness child care openings are immediately available in the new preschool classroom.  

Under the supervision of Family Centers' early childhood education director Beth Tanner and in partnership with Family Centers' Head Start director Megan Sweeney, the new classroom will be located at the First Steps Center, which is also the site for one of Greenwich's Head Start preschools operated by Family Centers. The First Steps Center was constructed and outfitted in 2003 after widespread community support and funding from the Leon Lowenstein Foundation, the State of Connecticut Bonding Commission, the Town of Greenwich through the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program, the Town of Greenwich Housing Authority, First Presbyterian Church and the United Way of Greenwich.

The United Way of Greenwich and an anonymous donor have provided the funds to purchase the furnishings and other essential curriculum and teaching supplies for this new classroom supported by the State's School Readiness program. The School Readiness initiative (jointly funded by the Connecticut Departments of Education and Social Services and administered by the Department of Education) develops a network of school readiness programs to significantly increase the number of spaces in accredited and/or approved programs for young children to provide access to high-quality school readiness programs. The initiative is also designed to significantly increase the number of full-day, full-year spaces to meet family needs; and to share the cost for school readiness and child-care programs among the state and its various agencies, the communities and families.

Family Centers' three existing early childhood education centers in Greenwich are accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), the nation's leading organization of early childhood professionals. These sites are the Arch Street Preschool at 40 Arch Street, the Gateway Preschool at 2 Chapel Street and the Joan Melber Warburg Early Childhood Center (for infants and toddlers) at 22 Bridge Street. Family Centers has been offering child care to area families since the opening of the Greenwich Day Nursery nearly 100 years ago.  Family Centers' Arch Street Preschool was the first center in Greenwich to be accredited by NAEYC in 1987.

For additional information about Family Centers' early childhood education programs, contact Beth Tanner at 869-4848.