The Little Wreckers preschool program left Staples High School for the 2023-24 school year due to a decline in enrollment. The project had been designed to provide Westport Public School employees with a convenient place to drop off their children during the workday. All preschool students who had registered for the program will now have the option to transition to the main campus, located at Earthplace.
The enrollment at Little Wreckers has dwindled to just five children, compared to the 10 to 12 enrollees in previous years. The future of the Little Wreckers Preschool program is uncertain and hinges on enrollment in its forthcoming years to determine its fiscal viability.
“It is a conversation [the financial officer and I] need to have,” Earthplace preschool director Amanda Ciardi said. “There is a possibility it will come back, but also there’s an equal possibility it will stay at Earthplace.”
Given the program’s tentative status, the Board of Education has not finalized any plans for either the classroom or playground that the group utilized.
“It is a non-traditional classroom, so [they] don’t have [the] features that other classrooms might have, such as a Smartboard,” Staples principal Stafford W. Thomas Jr. said.
The closure of the program at Staples has raised concerns among Westport Public School staff.
“The program is designed to work around their hours, so it opens earlier than we offer our Earthplace proper programs,” Ciardi said. “It takes into consideration parent/teacher conferences when they might be working late.”
It is a conversation [the financial officer and I] need to have. There is a possibility it will come back, but also there’s an equal possibility it will stay at Earthplace.
— Earthplace preschool director Amanda Ciardi
Many district teachers, including physical education health teacher Nicole Comerford, took advantage of the program’s convenience. In fact, around five to six other teachers from Staples also sent their children to Little Wreckers preschool.
“Their hours are a little bit different there,” Comerford said. “So I think that [the program’s closing] was difficult especially because it happened so last minute.”
The closure of the Little Wreckers Preschool impacts more than just the children. It also impacts students in Children’s Literature who previously read to the preschoolers. Students now will travel to the elementary schools to share the children’s books they create during the school year.
“We learned how to read and talk to children through expressing our voices in a manner that children will find entertaining,” former Children’s Literature student Kira Tomoda ’24 said. “We got to see how important it is to talk in a certain tone to keep children engaged.”
