The Jefferson School Committee approved the development of a prekindergarten program during its meeting on Tuesday, Jan 14.
The school committee has been in talks around a potential pre-K program with AOS 93 Director of Special Services Dominic DePatsy following the state’s requirement that school administrative units provide early childhood special education beginning July 1, 2028.
DePatsy, who previously made presentations to both the Jefferson and Nobleboro school committees during their respective October 2025 meetings, asked the committee for some guidance on if they wanted him to pursue the addition of a pre-K program at Jefferson Village School.
During the ensuing committee members discussed possible impacts to the education budget. As there are funding sources available, it’s possible a program would be able to be started without impact to Jefferson’s education budget, DePatsy said.
Jefferson Village School Principal Janet Delmar highlighted the benefits to introducing children to school at pre-K age.
“That pre-K year becomes the year where they really become acclimated to what does it look like and sound like to be a student in the school. And so, they really work on that focus a lot,” Delmar said.
DePatsy and others also stressed the impact of early intervention to better prepare children for success in school, and reduce the difficulties the school faces in accommodating their needs.
“I’ve spent 30 years in early childhood education, and early intervention is the way to combat behaviors,” said committee member Maria Solorzano.
School committee member Wayne Parlin questioned the need for a pre-K program.
“If parents want to send their kids to a pre-K for the sake of pre-K, I don’t understand why those parents just don’t spend more time reading with their kids and trying to teach them at home like, and be a parent like they’re supposed to anyway,” Parlin said. “I don’t feel like we got to create a pre-K because you don’t want to do your job as a parent.”
While teaching kids at home may have been possible in the past, families are facing more variables as they endeavor to raise their children, DePatsy said.
“It’s a totally different time and era,” DePatsy said.
Jefferson School Committee Chair Danielle Bernier spoke up in support of adopting the pre-K program.
“We walk a really fine line as the board to try to balance a budget that the town can afford, and the oath that we took to put the needs of the kids first, and it’s a really fine line to walk, and I think that we have an opportunity to be able to implement this at a low cost, and we should probably take advantage of that for the kids,” Bernier said.
The committee voted 4-1 to approve the creation of a pre-K program, with Parlin as the dissenter.
In other business, the school committee received first reads of nine edited policies, a third of which centered around gender and what the policies referred to as “separation according to biological sex.” The committee did not take any action on the policy changes.
The policy changes in question to the nondiscrimination/equal opportunity and affirmative action policy, sex-separated facilities and programs policy, and student records policy, would seek to permit the school impunity for the separation of bathrooms, locker rooms, and athletic teams based on “biological sex” and prevent employees and students from having “compelled speech,” as well as restricting name and pronoun changes on school records and regulating how staff refers to students via names and pronouns.
During the meeting’s public comment portion following the committee’s review of the changes, resident Leah Nook Frost raised concern about the gender-centric proposed policies impact on students.
“I find this very disturbing, as an educator and as parents and community members. I just think that, I think that this could be really damaging to children’s mental health, and it can lead to really, really deep problems,” she said.
Bernier said discussion around the policies would need to take place at a policy committee meeting. The next policy committee meeting will take place at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 10 at Jefferson Village School.
The next Jefferson School Committee meeting will take place at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 10 at Jefferson Village School. For more information, go to aos93.org/o/jvs or call 207-549-7491.
