Alachua County Public Schools’ early education programs significantly outperformed similar programs across the state, according to new ratings released by the Florida Department of Education (FDOE).
According to the FDOE, 78% of the district’s Voluntary Pre-Kindergarten (VPK) programs were rated ‘Excellent’ based on the academic performance of students and direct classroom observations. Only 33% of the nearly 6,100 VPK programs statewide, including thousands of private programs, received an ‘Excellent’ rating.
Thirty-one percent of the 68 public and private VPK providers in Alachua County were rated ‘Excellent.’ The vast majority of VPK providers in Alachua County are private.
“Something that really sets us apart is the quality of our staff, who are highly-educated and trained in early childhood education,” said Trisha Rodriguez, who coordinates the district’s VPK programs. “They are very dedicated to this field and are always looking for new ways to prepare children for kindergarten and beyond.”
The seven district programs receiving the top rating are based at Chiles, Talbot, Wiles, Newberry, Archer and Irby Elementary Schools and at the Duval Early Learning Academy. The VPK programs at Norton and Terwilliger were both rated ‘Above Expectations,’ the second-highest ranking offered by the state.
Four of the top ten VPK programs in the county for overall performance (academics and observations) are in Alachua County Public Schools, including Chiles (#2), Talbot (#3), Wiles (#6) and Newberry (#8).
Five of the top ten VPK programs in the county in the observation category are in district schools, including Newberry (#1), Chiles (#3), Talbot (#4), Irby (#9) and Archer (#10).
Newberry scored #11 among all the 6095 VPK providers in the state in that category.
This is the first year that the state has implemented a formal performance metric to rate VPK programs. Providers that don’t perform well enough risk losing VPK funding from the state.
“The best way to prepare students for school is to place them in the school setting,” said Rodriguez. “These results show that a high-level of learning is happening in our school-based VPK programs.”