Fewer students enrolling in Pre-K amid pandemic
Parents keeping toddlers home longer to help protect them from COVID - News 11's Arlette Yousif reports
YUMA, Ariz. (KYMA, KECY) - Fewer students are enrolling in Pre-k classes here in Yuma County due to the pandemic. While the COVID vaccine is only approved for children 12 years and older, families are taking extra precautions for nearly two years to keep their little ones safe, even if it means not attending Pre-K.
The Western Arizona Council of Governments (WACOG) reports many open seats since the beginning of the pandemic, a far cry from previous years.
"The program barely scrapes the surface of meeting the needs for Yuma County. So we've never had a problem with enrollment at all, ever. We've always been fully enrolled. When COVID hit, we did see drops in enrollment," says WACOG Head Start Director Debbie Schlamann.
WACOG shares that only 799 out of 954 seats have been filled for Pre-K this year and only 106 out of 116 seats have been filled for the early head start program, which is available for children ages one to two. Both programs are usually full every school year.
"Head start’s probably your safest bet in town. We do have higher standards of cleaning and sanitizing. We have UVC sterilizing lights in every classroom. The rooms are disinfected every day using these UVC lights that kill all the viruses in the classroom," explains Schlamann.
One mother says she’s confident in the safety measures adopted by WACOG schools. Her daughter is now attending class for the second year in a row.
"They’re very diligent about keeping the kids safe and, you know, clean in the hands… germs. So I felt more comfortable with all the precautions they put in place for her to go," says local mother Autumn Ferguson
WACOG reports only 3% of class time has been interrupted due to either a student or a teacher testing positive for COVID, but that there has not been any transmission at the school.
"They ended up having to close the school for the last two weeks of school ‘cause somebody tested positive. So that was good that, you know, they didn’t continue, you know, having classes in person, so it went back to zoom," explains Ferguson.
"We have sign-in, sign-out is outside. There’s hand sanitizer for the parents and masks if they don’t have them on," says Ferguson.
WACOG welcomes children from families that may be low-income, high risk, or high needs.
Director Schlamann says teachers have access to COVID testing at the main office, but the few recent positive cases have been among the children.
