Cape Cod Preschool Programs Growing

HYANNIS – One preschool program on Cape Cod is expanding on its own, while another is getting a financial boost to do so from the Healey administration.

The Monomoy Regional School District is announcing it will begin offering early childhood education at Chatham Elementary School for the 2024-2025 school year, in addition to the existing program at Harwich Elementary School.

This represents a return of preschool to Chatham Elementary, which school officials say was merged with Harwich because of low enrollment.

“This is an exciting expansion of our early childhood programming and we look forward to serving even more young people as they begin their educational journey,” says Monomoy Regional School District director of student services, Melissa Maguire.

Screenings are taking place for the integrated program on February 14th. For more information, visit www.monomoy.edu/preschool.

Meanwhile, the Sandwich School District is receiving 750-thousand dollars from Governor Maura Healey’s “Commonwealth Preschool Partnership Initiative” which was part of her Fiscal Year 2024 budget. Plymouth Public Schools is getting nearly half-a-million.

The governor emphasized a need to increase access to early education in her first State of the Commonwealth Address. There are 21 school districts across Massachusetts which are receiving 13-point-1-million dollars total. Healey’s office says applications are being accepted until February 16th for new school districts to get future funding through the initiative.