A petition circulated in Temple asks for one of ConVal’s three new preschool classes be placed in Temple.
ConVal voters approved a plan in March to expand the district’s preschool program from five classrooms to eight, but Temple residents say the expansion is slated to put the new classrooms in buildings that already house the program, and that this is unfair.
“Temple families have to drive to other towns in order to utilize the ConVal district preschool program that we as taxpayers are paying for,” wrote Jessica Belt Hipp on her Facebook post calling attention to the petition, which received more than 50 signatures.
“I think people were caught off-guard and didn’t realize that when Temple did vote for the preschool, I think they didn’t realize that the locations had kind of already been decided,” said Belt Hipp.
Belt Hipp serves on the Temple School Subcommittee, which falls under the town’s Community Advisory Committee. She said she was approached by parents who were concerned about access to the program.
“I think driving over the mountain, and the times available are all barriers,” Belt Hipp said, referring to Temple Mountain on Route 101. “There’s definitely a need for child care.”
Vivian Wills, who serves on the Temple Recreation Commission, said her commission has fielded requests for child care programming, often related to a lack of preschool access.
“It’s been out there, and nothing is new with that,” she said.
Colleen Bouchard, a resident of Temple who has children in eighth, third and first grade, said the issue was of vital importance to parents.
“The petition is important because the Town of Temple is coming together for something this community desperately needs,” she said. “A preschool in this area would be significant to our town, and quite possibly to our surrounding communities.”
The petition was available through March 31. Now, according to Belt Hipp, the next steps are to take it through School Board channels. She added that she and other town residents don’t necessarily expect the petition to change where the preschool classrooms are located, but hope that it will start a conversation about the future.
“I think people are aware that decisions have been made for the most part, but would still like to just have a conversation with the district and just say that there are a lot of people in Temple who care, and we’d like to be considered,” Belt Hipp said. “There’s this general feeling that people in Temple really care about education and really want to find ways to have more of a voice and more of a say in how kids are educated and how we can be involved.”