By Daniel Harizman ’19

Employees of the Westport Public School system were sent an email early Thursday afternoon announcing the introduction of Little Wreckers Preschool at Staples High School. The preschool will officially open on Jan. 2, 2018.

Enrollment will be available strictly to the district staff’s students whose children will have turned three but will not have turned five by Dec. 31, 2017. LWP will also operate on a “first-come first serve basis.” A total of 16 spots are available.

“I think anything that makes it easier for working parents to make sure that their child is in a place that is safe is always helpful,” Jamie Pacuk, English teacher and mother, said.

According to the email, the Little Wreckers Preschool (LWP) will operate from 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. daily, hours of work for all district employees will fall between this scheduled school day. The LWP’s operations manager is Elio Longo, Director of School Business Operations. The preschool will additionally provide Staples High School child development students with a continued learning internship given a high interest level in caring for young children.

“It was really inconvenient for my family to drop off my siblings and I at a school so far away when my parents were at work,” Hillary O’Neill ’19, whose father works as a Social Studies teacher in the Westport Public School district, said. “[A preschool at Staples] would have made it easier for my parents to drop us off and pick us up when we were younger if we had that opportunity.”

The target registration date as of Sept. 14, was Sept. 25, 2017, for the spring semester. Annual tuition will be $12,800.00 for full year enrollment. For parents enrolling their children for the 2018 spring semester, the tuition will be $6,400.00.

Graphic by Cameron Lynch ’19