PLANT CITY, Fla. \u2014 For the first time, Hillsborough County Schools is offering full-day voluntary prekindergarten at no cost to families, using funding from the tax referendum approved by voters in 2024.<\/p>\n
District leaders said that the expanded school day gives some of Hillsborough County\u2019s youngest students more time to develop academic and school-readiness skills before entering kindergarten.<\/p>\n
At Cork Elementary School, VPK teacher Brianne Cloutier said the additional classroom time is making a noticeable difference.<\/p>\n
Cloutier has taught VPK for more than 20 years and has watched generations of students move on to kindergarten and beyond.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe teach them all of their letters, their sounds, how to count, number recognition, how to quantize, so if I hold up number two, they\u2019re able to count two, their shapes, patterns,\u201d Cloutier said. \u201cWe have a whole list of Florida state standards that we teach to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Previously, teachers had about three hours each day to fit in that instruction. This school year, Hillsborough County\u2019s full-day program gives teachers additional time to work on those skills.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur pre-K day is a very full day, very busy, and when we just had the three hours a day, we were cramming all the content into a small amount of time,\u201d Cloutier said. \u201cSo now that we have the extended day, it is just a breath of fresh air.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a statement, Superintendent Van Ayres said early education plays an important role in students\u2019 long-term academic success.<\/p>\n
\u201cResearch is clear: the earliest years of a child\u2019s education shape everything that follows,” Ayres said. “Our Voluntary Prekindergarten program gives our youngest learners the foundation they need in literacy \u2014 the building block for a successful academic journey.\u201d<\/p>\n
The state currently provides funding for half-day VPK programs. In Hillsborough County, funding from the voter-approved tax referendum is being used to cover the second half of the school day.<\/p>\n
Cloutier said the goal is to use that additional time to send students into kindergarten with an even stronger foundation and better prepared for what comes next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PLANT CITY, Fla. \u2014 For the first time, Hillsborough County Schools is offering full-day voluntary prekindergarten at no…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":386642,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[4996,9995,274,113,5711,276,2200,115,135,137,136,278,2032,835],"class_list":["post-386641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-app-education","tag-app-latest-education-stories","tag-app-top-stories","tag-education","tag-fallon-silcox","tag-hillsborough-county","tag-instagram-bn9","tag-news","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-top-stories","tag-trending-topics","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386641\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/386642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}