The plan includes changes to the Early Childhood Program and transportation
JCPS announced its return plan for the Early Childhood Program in September. Below is the email sent to Early Childhood families about the plan and transportation:
September 15, 2023
Dear JCPS Early Childhood families,
We cannot thank you enough for your patience and support as the District has been navigating transportation challenges that impacted our ability to begin the Early Childhood Program on time.
We are excited to inform you that all JCPS Early Childhood locations will open on Monday, September 25. While these sites will be available to welcome children on this date, there will be changes to the Early Childhood program and how we provide transportation.
To implement our revised start date and work within our current transportation constraints, the District has modified the daily instructional schedule for Early Childhood to 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Students can still be at their locations all day, as Early Childhood Enrichment will be provided by the instructional team at each site, but JCPS will only provide transportation for the 10:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m. timeframe.
While Early Childhood begins on September 25, we will only provide transportation that week to special needs students with transportation as a related service on their IEP. We will start providing transportation to all Exceptional Child Education Early Childhood students on Monday, October 9. Parents will be notified by the school once bus numbers and estimated pick-up and drop-off times are determined. JCPS will not provide transportation to Early Childhood students who do not have IEPs. We understand this is an adjustment, but it’s currently the only way to make transportation successful for our Early Childhood Program.
If your child is eligible for Early Childhood transportation but you can drive your child to the program in the morning or pick them up at dismissal, we encourage you to do so. For those who can drive their child one way, you can either drop them off at the school/center start time or pick them up at the end of the day.
For example, if you can drive your child to their Early Childhood site in the morning, you can arrive at the opening time, and the bus will bring your child home at 1:30 p.m. If you need morning transportation but can pick your child up at dismissal, your child will arrive at their site at 10:30 a.m. but can stay until you pick them up at site dismissal in the late afternoon. As a reminder, Early Childhood transportation will only be available for students who have IEPs.
We are also working on a plan to provide a monetary stipend to parents who can transport their child to and from Early Childhood each day. We will provide more information on this soon.
The start time for two of our Early Childhood centers is an additional adjustment. Dawson Orman Education Center and DuValle Education Center will move their start/dismissal times from 10:40 a.m./5:20 p.m. to the new times of 9:40 a.m./4:20 p.m. to best accommodate our students.
You can find start and dismissal times for all Early Childhood Program locations here.
We are working on a plan to extend our summer learning opportunities for our youngest students, including expanding Ready 4 K and providing more summer enrichment opportunities. We will provide more information on those programs later in the school year.
Thank you for your ongoing support and cooperation as we work towards providing your child with the best possible learning experience. We are truly grateful to have you as part of our JCPS community, and we look forward to welcoming our youngest students back to school.
Sincerely,
Jefferson County Public Schools