BEECH GROVE— Tuesday morning, it's quiet inside Kaitlyn King's classroom. It's the day before the first day of school.
“I'm really looking forward to not just getting them ready for school and welcoming them in, but the kindergartners just get exposed to a brand new world,” King said.
King is the STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and music) teacher at Hornet Park Elementary.
This year, King will be implementing Project Lead the Way, a curriculum designed to foster hands-on problem-solving and interdisciplinary learning.
“It has some really interesting connections between different topics that I can show to my students and they can figure out real-world problems related to the issue that they’re solving in this classroom,” she said.
Thanks to a grant from the Lilly Endowment, the district is also expanding access to science materials.
“That now allows us to have science materials in all of our kindergarten through sixth grade classrooms, which we’ve never been able to have that before,” said Superintendent Dr. Laura Hammack.
The excitement for the school year also extends to the Hornet Park Early Childhood Center.
“We serve 3-, 4-, 5-year-olds,” Hammack said.
This year, the center has open seats available. Over the last two years, the Early Childhood Center had a waitlist, but a reduction in funding to the On My Way Pre K Program is limiting access for some families.
“So we unfortunately have witnessed a decline in the number of preschool students who are able to join us because they have not been able to access that incredible program,” Hammack said.
Despite the challenges, staff at Hornet Park are eager for the first day.
“We like to think of the first day of school as Christmas morning and we can’t wait to see all those sweet faces,” Hammack said.
If you would like to enroll in the Hornet Park Early Childhood Center, you can call the school.
