Conestoga Valley School District is excited to announce it has been awarded a Pre-K Counts grant for the 2023-24 school year.  
 
“It is with great excitement and anticipation that the Conestoga Valley School District welcomes our inaugural group of pre-K children to our elementary school buildings,” said Jill Koser, Conestoga Valley’s Assistant to the Superintendent for Elementary Education. “CV’s extensive network of community partnerships serve as the foundation for this collaborative effort to support the growth of First 10 opportunities for Buckskin families.”  
 
The Pennsylvania Pre-K Counts program provides free pre-kindergarten services to at-risk three- and four-year-olds and offers full day services in CVSD. This program will be held in all four of CV’s elementary schools beginning September 5, 2023. Steps to Success, Inc. will be the district’s lead partner for classrooms located at Brownstown, Fritz, and Leola Elementary Schools. Owl Hill Learning Centers will be the lead partner for the two classrooms located at Smoketown Elementary School. In addition to the classrooms based in CV schools, the district also serves as the lead agency supporting two pre-K classrooms at Lancaster Mennonite School. 

The Pre-K Counts program was established in 2007 to provide eligible children access to high-quality, publicly funded pre-k. The program’s goal is to reduce educational disparities for children who are between age three and until the entry age for kindergarten and live in families earning up to 300 percent of the federal poverty level.  

This is the ninth year CV has been a Pre-K Counts lead agency and grant recipient, but this marks the first time the classrooms will be located in CV’s elementary school buildings and CV is now one of only two districts in the county to have pre-k classrooms located in its buildings. 

More information can be found here.