Mills Lawn as it appeared in 2021. (Photo by Bryan Cady)
Survey helps plan for future Yellow Springs Schools Preschool
- Published: March 7, 2025
With ground broken for its facilities upgrades project earlier this month, YS Schools is looking now to ask the community: What do you need from a public preschool?
As the News has reported in the past, when the facilities project is complete, fifth and sixth grade students will be moved to the East Enon Road campus, creating space at Mills Lawn for a four-day-a-week preschool program. The school district is currently hosting a survey that aims to collect data from caregivers of prospective future Mills Lawn preschool students.
The online survey was created by InnovateK12, a Florida-based data analytics firm, and is available through March 31. The survey is brief, and includes just five questions — an intentional move by the district, Student Services Director Donna First told the News this month.
“We’re just seeing what we need to plan for — getting that initial data,” First said. “We’re planning for enrollment numbers, how many teachers we’ll need, half- or full-day classes.”
In addition to the metrics First mentioned, the survey also asks caregivers to rank top priorities with regard to curriculum, location, cost and physical learning environment; and whether or not families will pursue childcare options for the fifth day of the school week, as most public preschool programs operate Monday–Thursday.
Outside of the parameters of this preliminary survey, another unknown for the future preschool program is when it will begin serving local students. Though the completion of renovations at Mills Lawn is projected for 2026, the pace of the project will be partly dependent on any delays that might arise.
At the same time, there are a number of state requirements to getting a new public preschool program off the ground. Those include preschool licensure for the district and requirements for curriculum and special education, as well as physical space regulations, including separate playground facilities for preschoolers.
“There are many regulations put on this space and the outdoor space that we are having to take into consideration as we are going through the facilities project,” Mills Lawn Principal Megan Winston told the News.
All of these things mean it will take some time before caregivers are able to sign their little ones up for preschool at Mills Lawn — but the survey will help district leadership get started.
Mills Lawn will have two classrooms available for the planned preschool program, each of which can accommodate up to 16 students, with a eight slots allotted per class for students with special education needs.
“Depending on the response [to the survey], we’ll be planning for how many teachers we need to hire, whether we’ll have 16 kids or 32 or any other combination,” First said. “And if the program is full-day rather than half-day, that kicks the program into providing not just a snack, but lunch, so that will need to be planned for, too.”
The planned preschool program at Mills Lawn will not be the first such program in Yellow Springs; by state law, all school districts are required to have a public preschool program, and Friends Preschool, housed at Friends Care Community and overseen by the Greene County Educational Service Center, fulfills that requirement for both the Yellow Springs and Cedar Cliff school districts. Both the upcoming program at Mills Lawn and Friends Preschool are slated to operate independently in the future, though Mills Lawn will not serve Cedar Cliff students.
Like Friends Preschool, Mills Lawn’s preschool program will have a tuition cost for families, as most public preschool programs in Ohio do. Districts set their own tuition costs, and they range from $125 to $750 per month statewide, though rural districts, like Yellow Springs, are often on the lower end of that range.
“Public preschools generally offer a lower-cost option than private preschools, because of state funding,” Winston said.
“And fees are typically waived for students with disabilities,” First added.
Before coming to Yellow Springs, Winston previously served for five years as principal of Horace Mann Pre-K–8 School in Dayton, which, like the planned Mills Lawn program, had two preschool classrooms in the building. Speaking from her experience, Winston said hosting a public preschool program together with elementary grades gives the youngest students the opportunity to spend all their first years of school in the same building.
“One of the most beneficial points of having the preschool in the classroom is consistency from that first exposure to schooling,” Winston said. “They get to grow comfortable with the building and transition to kindergarten knowing the adults and many of the students they will be in classrooms with, instead of being in an unfamiliar building for one year and then having to transition to another environment.”
Mills Lawn’s preschool program won’t replace other public and private preschool programs in the area — on the contrary, First said the district hopes hosting an additional program in the local elementary school will expand opportunities for more caregivers to enroll their students in preschool.
“When we had our strategic planning, so many parents talked about preschool that it was obvious that the community really wanted more service,” First said.
And the benefits of attending preschool for students, Winston added, are clear.
“While literacy and math are very important, and that will be part of the school day routine, I think the social-emotional development is what we are really striving to increase at the preschool level,” she said. “So when they go into kindergarten and they are learning those Ohio Learning Standards, they’ll be ready for the academic piece, because we’ve already had a year to develop the social-emotional piece.”
The district’s preschool program survey is available online at http://www.ysschools.org/preschool-survey through March 31. All responses will remain confidential and will be used solely to guide the planning process for the Yellow Springs Schools Preschool.
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