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Knoxville able to keep open preschool expansion despite state block grant cut

WGIL reported in June that several schools in the Regional Office of Education #33 would be losing out on a large chunk of a grant to fund pre-k programs.Regional Superintendent Jodi Scott said that for the past few years she’s written the grant to get these state dollars for a group of district including Galesburg, Knoxville, Abingdon-Avon and ROWVA.

Many of the superintendents said they would likely have to close some sections of pre-k due to the cuts.

But at least one district has found a way to not close a section.

Knoxville Superintendent Steve Wilder says Mabel Woolsey Principal Tara Bahnks was able to find a way to reallocate district funds.

Additionally Scott was able to reallocate some regional money so an expansion of Knoxville pre-k program that went into effect last year wouldn’t be cut.

Wilder says they were surprised to find out they weren’t approved for the state grant, since the legislature allocated $50 million new dollars for it.

“To be fair we knew it was a competitive process, they told us that upfront but we also felt like we’ve got a good program and we’ve demonstrated we’re doing good things and therefore felt pretty good about the funding coming through,” Wilder says. “And when that announcement was made that the funding was not there some difficult decisions needed to be made.”

The ROE lost about $2.8 million in early childhood grants.

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