TOWN TRAFFIC | This is the second in a series examining traffic flow and safety, and the ways people get around in Yellow Springs.
The intersection at U.S. 68 and East Hyde Road has long been considered by Yellow Springers as one of the most dangerous in or around the village. Vehicles traveling on Hyde Road are signaled — by both stop signs and an overhead flashing light — to yield to vehicles traveling on 68.
But they don’t always do so; in just the last six months, there have been eight traffic collisions at the intersection — all of which were caused by a vehicle failing to yield on Hyde Road.
The number of recent collisions has sparked concern from News readers, who have wondered: How bad is the intersection? And if it’s bad, what can be done about it?
By the numbers
Police Chief Paige Burge told the News via email this week that the intersection of 68 and Hyde is not within the YS Police Department’s jurisdiction — it’s located just outside of village limits, so the police jurisdiction falls to the Greene County Sheriff’s Office, and because 68 is a U.S. route, traffic-related incidents are handled Ohio State Highway Patrol.
Nevertheless, the YSPD is aware of the volume of calls that pertain to the intersection. Within the last 14 months, there have been 33 calls to Greene County dispatch about traffic-related incidents at 68 and Hyde — including traffic stops, traffic complaints such as reckless driving and crashes, with YSPD assisting in responding to six of those calls at the county’s request.
“While our department may not have jurisdiction over this particular intersection … I do acknowledge why this particular area may be of heightened concern, as it’s in the transition area between our village and the county road where speeds are greater entering and leaving our village,” Burge wrote.
In November last year, the News requested crash records for the intersection of U.S. 68 and East Hyde Road from the Ohio Department of Public Safety, or ODPS, which keeps crash data on file for five years. The five-year crash data for the intersection revealed that 30 collisions, involving either one vehicle or multiple vehicles, took place there from Oct. 1, 2019–Oct. 31, 2024. (According to data collected in a later request, there have since been two additional collisions at the intersection — one in November and one in December 2024.)
Of the 30 collisions recorded, 27 were caused by a vehicle traveling on Hyde Road that failed to yield at either the eastbound or westbound stop signs. The remaining three collisions include two involving two vehicles traveling on U.S. 68 near the intersection, and a third, single-vehicle collision with a guardrail. Twenty-nine of the recorded crashes took place between 8 a.m. and 7 p.m.; one occurred at 1 a.m.
Twenty-two of the 30 collisions — about 73% — involved only property damage, according to on-site assessments taken by Ohio State Highway Patrol officers. The remaining eight incidents — about 27% — involved either “possible” or “suspected” injuries, according to the assessments.
The number of collisions at 68 and Hyde is higher than other major intersections within village limits; for the same five-year period, there were four recorded one- or multiple-vehicle collisions at U.S. 68 and South College Street, five at Dayton-Yellow Springs and Enon roads, 11 at U.S. 68 and Limestone Street, 12 at U.S. 68 and Corry Street and 14 at U.S. 68 and S.R. 343/Cemetery Street. Notably, each of the above intersections — unlike 68 and Hyde — employs the use of a stoplight.
But it’s highly unlikely that 68 and Hyde will ever have a stoplight installed, based on state eligibility metrics set by the Ohio Department of Transportation, or ODOT, which holds the maintenance jurisdiction over the intersection. ODOT installs traffic signals based on traffic volume rather than the number of crashes that are recorded at an intersection.
Tom Mazza, a traffic studies engineer and Safe Routes to School coordinator with ODOT District 8 — which includes Greene County — said his department has fielded requests for a signal at 68 and Hyde “a half-dozen times” over the last several years. However, he added, based on existing traffic volume data, “the U.S. 68 and Hyde Road intersection will not meet” the required thresholds for installing a stoplight.
Specifically, U.S. 68 would need to meet a minimum traffic volume of 500 vehicles traveling in either direction within an eight-hour period. At the same time, there would need to be a minimum of 150 vehicles traveling in one direction on Hyde Road within an eight-hour period.
“It’s a pretty significant volume of traffic that’s required,” Mazza said. “I think the total traffic volume on Hyde Road throughout the day is not [150 vehicles], so it would be hard to meet these volumes.”
Changes for 68 and Hyde?
Though it’s not slated to receive a traffic signal, there could still be changes on the horizon for 68 and Hyde based on the number of collisions recorded there over the last several years.
Within the first three years of crash data collected by the News, there were a total of nine collisions caused by a vehicle failing to yield on Hyde Road and striking a vehicle traveling on U.S. 68 — five in the first year, three in the second, and one in the third.
Mazza said, on average, two or three “angle crashes” — that is, when one vehicle strikes another at an angle, typically at an intersection — is within typical annual state crash projections for a rural intersection like 68 and Hyde.
“We’re not seeing anything that’s outside of the ordinary [for the first three years],” Mazza said. “The intersection already has dual signage, we have the overhead flasher there, we put the LED stop signs up, and the speed limit is 45 miles per hour through there. … So there already have been a lot of low-cost, minor things that have been thought of for this location.”
However, within the final two years of data, Nov. 1, 2022–Oct. 31, 2024, there were 19 multi-vehicle collisions caused by a failure to yield — more than double the total number recorded in the previous three years.
Because the numbers have increased significantly over a two-year period at the intersection, Mazza said, it could receive more state scrutiny.
“I would say the crash trends we’ve seen the last two years are high enough now that this intersection is definitely of more interest to ODOT to look at with a little more detail,” he said.
Mazza said “more detail” would include an updated traffic count at the intersection — ODOT’s current data is “about three or four years old,” he said — and using that data to run a traffic signal warrant analysis
“Like I said, we don’t expect it to meet a signal warrant [threshold], but we’ll still check that,” he said.
Next, he said, ODOT would use the new traffic volume data to “analyze the predicted number of crashes … based on different types of intersection control.” In particular, how would 68 and Hyde function if it operated as a four-way stop, or as a roundabout?
Assuming these additional studies are conducted and find a need for a change at 68 and Hyde, Mazza said ODOT would look at applying for funding for an update to the intersection in August of this year.
However, the state tends to apply for funds based on a ranked list of roads and intersections that may need safety improvements. The current safety improvement priority list ranks up to the top 500 locations of a number of location types — including rural intersections, like 68 and Hyde — which are sorted “by highest expected fatal and all injury crashes per year/per mile,” according to ODOT.
“One of the things that list looks at is locations that have higher potential for safety improvement or that are seeing higher crashes than we would expect to see,” said Brianne Hetzel, a traffic engineer with ODOT. “This intersection just hasn’t been a ranked location in the past. … Really where we start looking at safety applications to pursue funding is based on that ranking list.”
Hetzel pointed out that, just down the road, the intersection of U.S. 68 and S.R. 235 — where a roundabout was installed last year — showed up as a ranked location “several times,” with ODOT trying the “low-cost, short-term counter measures” before pursuing funding to install the roundabout.
Nevertheless, Mazza said, if ODOT were to complete traffic studies and apply for funding for a change at 68 and Hyde this summer, it would be 2026 before project development would begin. And if, say, a roundabout were the way ODOT decided to go, it could take about three years to go through the planning and design process, and another year for construction.
“So it could be four years before it would actually get built,” he said.
Which is all to say: If changes are coming to 68 and Hyde, they won’t be coming any time soon. And, as ODOT Public Information Officer Kathleen Fuller added, there is a “public information process” ODOT goes through before beginning a project.
“So people will have their chance to comment,” she said. “There’s going to be a time where they can weigh in on it, and they’ll learn more about it before it ever happens.”
The News will follow up with ODOT this summer for more on what traffic studies the department conducted, what data was collected and whether ODOT intends to pursue funding for a safety improvement project.
Just six days ahead of St. Patrick’s Day, Yellow Springs is getting a little more green — an internationally renowned Irish band is jumping the pond and coming to town.
As part of the Foundry Theater at Antioch College’s ongoing season of programming, traditional Irish music quintet Lúnasa will take the stage Tuesday, March 11, at 7 p.m. Tickets can be purchased at bit.ly/4ik9nGk.
Roving the country with a flutist, guitarist, double bassist, fiddler and piper, Lúnasa comes to the village on their month-long American tour.
Since forming in 1997, the critically acclaimed instrumental group has brought their Irish flair to every corner of the globe, playing on stages and in pubs, and producing eight full-length albums. The band’s name — pronounced “lune-eh-sah” — harkens to Lughnasadh, a Gaelic summer festival marking the beginning of the harvest season.
As Kevin Crawford, Lúnasa’s tin whistler and flutist told the News via Zoom last month, the celebratory imagery evoked by the band’s name was “just what the lads wanted.”
“Of all the old pre-Celtic festivals, it was one of the more flamboyant,” Crawford said in his lilting brogue, speaking from his home in upstate New York. “People would dress up, paint their faces. It’d be all music and merriment, drinking and debauchery — the kind of elements that we wanted to run with.”
Out of consideration for future audiences who may not speak Irish, the group opted for the more phonetic “Lúnasa” over Lughnasadh.
The inter-band discussion of that longlasting moniker came not too long after Crawford joined the group nearly three decades ago. He came onboard as a newlywed advertising salesman who played tin whistle and flute as a hobby — usually around kitchen tables and in impromptu pub sessions, “just noodlin’ on the things,” Crawford said.
A month after Crawford’s wedding, multi-instrumentalist Seán Smyth invited him to be part of a small group of musicians on a six-month tour of Australia. Crawford obliged, and Lúnasa was formed. In 1998, the band released its first full-length, self-titled album.
Though the makeup of Lúnasa has changed some over the years, the core lineup has generally held strong for over two decades — Crawford on flute and whistle, Smyth on fiddle, Ed Boyd on guitar, Trevor Hutchinson on bass and Cillian Vallely on whistle and uilleann — pronounced “ill-in” — pipes.
“But since a few of us play the whistle, that almost makes for a sixth member of the band. Together, they become like a kind of singer,” Crawford said, noting that the group is almost exclusively instrumental — playing traditional Irish melodies, rather than songs.
It’s unlikely many audience members of Tuesday’s performance at Antioch will have seen uilleann pipes played in person before, Crawford said. According to Na Píobairí Uilleann, an Irish group dedicated to preserving and promoting the instrument, only a few thousand musicians around the world play it — a cohort that is gradually dwindling.
The uilleann pipes are a kind of bagpipe, with the name loosely translating to the Irish word for “elbow.” The bag, inflated with a small set of bellows attached to the piper’s arm, provides air to the chanter, drones and regulators.
“It’s this full-body movement,” Crawford said. “Two elbows whaling, arms lifting like crazy. It’s impressive — everyone’s always impressed by the pipes. Even if Cillian was a terrible musician — which he most certainly is not — we’d still need him in the band.”
In instrumentation, in name and in sound, Crawford said the band takes seriously the folk tradition of Irish music. He likened Lúnasa to a single branch of an ever-growing tree whose roots go back centuries. For the group, Irish traditional music is a way of preserving old stories, lineages and even romantic visions of a place and a people.
“We’re carrying on the tradition,” Crawford said. “And we’re very fortunate to be able to make a living doing it now. A century ago, people were playing this kind of music just because they loved it.”
He continued: “Back then, the musicians were just kind of providing a function in a community, sometimes not seeing beyond their own village. They played for local dances, for communions, for weddings. And out of this tradition, it’s grown into something much, much bigger.”
It’s the genre’s “accessibility” that has contributed to its worldwide popularity and acclaim. Irish melodies, Crawford said, have the power to transcend any direct or romantic connection to Ireland — nostalgic, ancestral, imagined or otherwise.
As an example, Crawford said he’s seen some of the most enthusiastic Irish music fans in Japan.
“Which is just phenomenal! What’s the connection to Ireland there? There’s hardly any,” Crawford said.
It’s only fitting, then, that their most recent album release was 2024’s “Live in Kyoto.”
“Sure, years of immigration and circumstance have spread the sound, but I think there’s something basic in the melodies and rhythms that, when you peel back the veneer, make it the gift that keeps on giving,” Crawford said. “On a surface level, [traditional Irish music] can give you this instant dopamine hit, but the more you listen, the more you hear something new — it becomes more sophisticated than you first thought.”
Crawford said he and “the lads” are looking forward to bringing their jigs and reels to Yellow Springs — a place already steeped in its own long-standing musical folk traditions and sounds.
“Some could deem that jazz and classical music are for a certain class of people,” Crawford said. “But folk music? Folk music is of the people. Irish music is of the people.”
Lúnasa will perform at the Foundry Theater at Antioch College, located at 920 Corry St., on Tuesday, March 11, 7–9 p.m. As of press time, premiere floor seating had sold out, but general admission is $30 and student admission is $5. Tickets can be purchased at the door, or online at bit.ly/4ik9nGk.
A lot has been said about the community of residents who have come to neighboring Springfield from Haiti — in regional and national news reports, sound bytes, social media posts and elsewhere in print, radio, television and online.
Most of those stories — some of them based on harmful stereotypes and disinformation — have been told by folks on the outside of the Haitian immigrant community, looking in.
Now, a group of five Springfield residents from Haiti have begun telling their own stories, using their own voices. “Haitians in the Heartland” is a new series produced at WYSO 91.3 as a collaboration between WYSO’s Eichelberger Center for Community Voices and Springfield’s Haitian Community Alliance.
The series, which aired its first segment Wednesday, Feb. 19, features the narratives and voices of Miguelito Jerome, Virginelle Jerome, Luckens Merzius, Gerly Philidor and Jacques Adler Jean Pierre.
The News spoke this month with the Eichelberger Center’s Director Will Davis and Managing Editor Chris Welter. They said “Haitians in the Heartland” grew from the confluence of several factors, but its seeds were sown several years ago, when then-WYSO reporter Alejandro Figueroa — now a reporter for Oregon Public Broadcasting — began forming relationships within Springfield’s Haitian community. In particular, Welter said, Figueroa got to know the folks who ran New Diaspora Live, or NDL, the Haitian-American radio station in Springfield; though it ran programming for more than three years, NDL is currently on an indeterminate hiatus as of early this year.
Welter’s own introduction to NDL and some of its staff came last September, when he was in Springfield ostensibly to cover the town hall event held by former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. Standing in line to get into the event, Welter said he began chatting with Luckens Merzius and Miguelito Jerome, then followed them back to the NDL studio at CoHatch down the street.
“I thought, ‘Honestly, I don’t really care about this town hall, and I’d rather go chat with these folks.’ We started talking about this idea — and [Figueroa] had kind of started the idea of doing something like [‘Haitians in the Heartland’], but it just didn’t come together,” Welter said. “By [last year], I was at the Center for Community Voices, so I felt like it was within Will’s and my wheelhouse now to actually do something like this.”
Davis added that Ohio Humanities, which has provided funding for past WYSO projects, had reached out to the Eichelberger Center following the presidential debate earlier the same month, in which President Trump repeated damaging false allegations about Springfield residents from Haiti. Ohio Humanities floated the idea of helping to fund a “storytelling project with the Haitian American community in Springfield.” Though the funding isn’t currently available — Ohio Humanities, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, put a pause on issuing grants following Trump’s federal funding freeze — Davis said WYSO was “committed to doing it anyway.”
But it was really the interest and passion of the radio professionals who form the nucleus of the storytelling within “Haitians in the Heartland” that drove the creation of the series. Most have backgrounds in broadcasting and/or reporting; Miguelito and Virginelle Jerome were radio professionals in Jérémie, Haiti, and hosted programs on NDL in Springfield; Jacques Adler Jean Pierre is an internationally known visual artist and poet and a print, television and radio journalist; and Gerly Philidor was a radio music host in Haiti for 20 years, and continued broadcasting in Springfield at NDL. Luckens Merzius was new to radio when he came to Springfield, but got his first on-air experience at NDL and became the station’s public relations manager.
“The people from NDL were saying, ‘What we really need right now is a frequency to get our message out,” Welter said, adding that, because NDL was an online radio station, reaching a wider audience “posed some challenges.” WYSO could help with that — particularly as NDL is currently offline.
“We hoped to provide opportunities moving forward for these professionals to do their craft,” Welter said, noting that, like many who have emigrated from Haiti, several of the series’ producers are working jobs not related to their chosen professional vocations. “And we’re hoping we can expand our partnership with the producers so we can have more regular contributions from them.”
Unlike most folks who come into the Eichelberger Center for Community Voices — which routinely trains new participants in radio storytelling and production — the five producers for “Haitians in the Heartland” brought years of experience with them through WYSO’s doors. Davis said the producers also came brimming with ideas, and the sky was really the limit when it came to what the group could put together — enough that the series, which is set to air weekly on Wednesdays through March 23, “may have a few more” installments.
“In the course of making the series, we’ve gotten some interesting recordings and we’ve got some bonus material,” Davis said. “So we’ve started out with six episodes, and we certainly have that — and they’re strong episodes — but we may just continue to do more after.”
Episodes in the series include interviews with family and friends, personal reflections and poetry, among other subjects. Noting WYSO’s three divisions — news, music and storytelling — Davis said “Haitians in the Heartland” falls in the latter category.
“It really is uniquely coming from them, including the format they chose to tell their stories,” Davis said. “It was a very creative process [and] as a kind of executive producer, it’s been interesting to work that way, and there’s a lot of variety.”
Welter added: “With all of our producers, there’s a real humanity and a different flavor to each story.”
And bringing the humanity of each of the storytellers and their subjects — and, implicitly, the wider community from which they come — into sharp focus is at the heart of the series.
The News reached out to several of the “Haitians in the Heartland” producers, but was unable to arrange interviews prior to press time. However, in the series’ first episode, three of the producers spoke to their motivations for creating their pieces and their desire to illuminate truths about the folks at the center of the stories — including what brought them to the U.S.
“I think one of the questions that most people might have is what’s the situation in Haiti right now, and how that situation kind of influenced us to migrate to the U.S.,” Miguelito Jerome said in the opening episode.
“That’s what I would want our listeners to think about — reasons that could push you to leave home and not necessarily wanting to leave home but still having to do so, and the different sacrifices that we had to make,” Virginelle Jerome said, later adding: “I want others to see the humane side, and hear the stories about the journeys that some of us had to take.”
“Everybody has a different story,” Merzius said.
New episodes of “Haitians in the Heartland” will be released Wednesdays on wyso.org, and will air during “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered.”
By Chris Wyatt
Feb. 9, 2025
It is steadily around freezing, but has been warm enough for Morris’ car to tear up the drive to the garage and turn it into a plowed field. I contacted Craig McCann and he and his daughter dug out the mud and spread four tons of gravel. They did a fantastic job — prompt, efficient and very professional. I highly recommend him. Now Morris can get the car in the garage without spinning his wheels and spraying mud everywhere.
Today is Superbowl Sunday. Even after 18 years in America, I can’t summon any passion for American football. However, today the Eagles play, and they are my friend’s team, so there will be a gathering to shout at the screen and eat carbohydrates. Exciting times. As I’m not really allowed to eat many carbohydrates, I think I’ll make some chicken skewers with a spicy peanut sauce, lemons, cilantro — that kind of thing. In an ideal world, I’d cook them yakitori-style over fancy Japanese charcoal, or binchotan), but that stuff is not cheap, so I shall fire up the stove and cook them in a cast-iron skillet. I’ve done it before, it works well.
Time to split more wood today. We will get through February with the amount of oak that we have, but then I will be on the hunt for another cord-and-a-half of hardwood.
Feb. 12, 2025
I go to bed very early to read, and consequently I get up very early, too. I love waking in the pre-dawn, enjoying a cup of tea and then washing all the pots from the night before. It’s a comfortable little ritual and the hot water is good for my fingers. It gives me time to plan my day.
Today I need to grade student literature reviews and review some post-approval monitoring of research projects for a semi-annual inspection. While all this sounds a bit tedious, it is actually something I enjoy. The student reviews are often fun to read, and sometimes they catch interesting stuff that I have missed. The post-approval monitoring is important to make sure projects are on track, and that the investigators are taking their job seriously.
Archie will join me in about half an hour. He finds it difficult to wake up these days as I have just put luxurious new linen sheets — pale green and beautiful — on the bed and his wee nest is very comfortable.
Feb. 15, 2025
Fortified with toast, egg, ham and tea; it seems like today will be a good day for indoor chores, writing and staring out of the window. The weather is foul, and it will rain all day.
I survived another 10-degree night out at the Hall, but yet again all our dry wood is gone and the remaining oak is wet from rain. I can dry it over the forced air at home, but I really do need a woodshed; there simply isn’t enough air movement in the garage to keep wood dry. Karen is grumpy because she wants somewhere where she can smoke outside when it is raining, so I may suggest that she puts a chair in the woodshed. However, as I value my life, I probably won’t suggest that. My suggestion that she get an umbrella was met with a fierce stare.
Ever the romantic, I had our taxes done on Valentine’s Day. This was the first year that we actually owed the federal government money; we are going to miss those child tax credits. Time marches on. I think I’ll chat to payroll at work and see if they can withhold a little bit extra each month to offset the fact that my children are no longer children. What fun.
But now I need to think about what is for dinner. Morris works on Saturdays, and so our options are broader, as Bob will eat pretty much anything, and so will Karen and I. Maybe I’ll make a rich and cheesy spinach and mushroom lasagna, then serve it with a green salad or fancy young broccoli. It will probably be broccoli for its fiber content, but it’s always nice to have some salad in the house, even during February.
Cooking is one calming activity that helps pass the time on dreary days. As a scientist in Britain, I would often busily spend the day not understanding anything at all, failing to get reproducible data, breaking things and swearing. I would often do all of this in the dark, as I used light-sensitive chemicals.
In Scotland during the winter, the sun would rise in my rear-view mirror at 9 a.m., I would work in the dark all day and the sun would set at 3:30 p.m. Having failed to get any useful data whatsoever, I would then cook dinner. Wonderful. Even if things went slightly wrong in the kitchen, I would still have something that was tasty and filling. Cooking a lasagna is way more forgiving than whole-cell patch-clamp electrophysiology, especially if you are simultaneously measuring intracellular calcium with fluorescent dyes.
Ultimately, the cooking and the science paid off, and I have several tasty recipes in my head, and the Scottish experiments resulted in a Nature paper that has been cited 900 times.
*Originally from Manchester, England, Chris Wyatt is an associate professor of neuroscience, cell biology and physiology at Wright State University. He has lived in Yellow Springs for 18 years, is married and has two children and an insane Patterdale terrier.
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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