A new preschool is opening in January 2020 in Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority’s Valley View community, and will offer early childhood education to AMHA’s youngest residents. Inspired by Summit County’s Summit Education initiative, a group from the First Congregational Church of Hudson (in Ohio) partnered with AMHA to create a nondenominational preschool experience for underserved families in the community.
Children living in poverty have limited access to early childhood education, and according to a 2019 study, 55 percent of children between the ages of three and four who live in Ohio are not enrolled in school.
Nancy Martinez, the future administrator and lead teacher for Children’s Center at Valley View, as the school will be known, has been interviewing local parents ahead of creating a customized curriculum. Invitations for enrollment will be sent to families living in the Valley View community with children ranging from birth to five years old.
“By providing a creative, nourishing, and educationally based preschool program…we can help plant the seeds to success in a child’s path to learning, growth, and happiness,” said Martinez. “The hope for this new preschool is to further emphasize the importance of early childhood education and to utilize all available tools and resources...”
You can read more about this program here.
