For about 80 Clark County Preschool students, the school year isn’t quite over yet.

For the first time, Clark County Public Schools, in partnership with the Bluegrass Children’s Academy, is offering a Kindergarten Readiness Academy.

Principal Kara Davies said students in the academy receive an additional six weeks of full-day instruction. The academy also provides transportation, breakfast and lunch; it’s currently in its first week.

“It’s possible because of a $300,000 grant from the Kentucky Department of Education,” Davies said. “We worked with Bill Buchanan and Andrea Bartholomew, who used to work here and wrote that grant. We work closely with KDE. So I have $150,000 this year and then $150,000 next year.”

Another piece of the Kentucky Department of Education Preschool Partnership Grant, which is still in the works, Davies said, is mobile classrooms.

“We will be taking model classrooms around day cares in the community,” Davies said.

Superintendent Paul Christy said the academy is one sign of the preschool’s continuing growth.

“Just in the last couple of years, we’ve graduated the first class of kids who started full-day preschool here,” Christy said. “… The scores of high school in the last three years have continuously gone up. That’s, I think, in part due to engaging kids as early as possible in an educational setting.”

Christy said he gives the Clark County Board of Education a lot of credit for funding preschool and kindergarten full time as that’s not a state requirement. Not many other districts in the region provide full-day preschool and kindergarten.

Davies said the academy is meant to mirror kindergarten as much as possible.

“They’re doing a lot of writing skills, a lot of letters, numbers, identification, understanding numeracy, understanding what quantities represent a number,” Davies said. “We’re working on writing our names, recognizing colors, letters, shapes.”

Davies said the academy has even removed nap time because kindergartners don’t have nap time.

“Kindergarten spends a lot more time on carpet and a lot more seat work,” she said. “And so they’re getting some of that, but we’re also doing a lot of gross motor time … Our brains prioritize locomotive skills. So running, skipping, hopping, jumping, our brain says that’s the most important thing to learn because we need to be able to run from prey and get food. That’s how our brains have evolved to be.

“So any mental energy you would spend on learning letters and numbers, our brain can’t do that until we have automatic locomotive skills. So we’re doing a lot of gross motors to build those locomotive skills, so that frees up brain space.”

The preschool is also currently screening for next year’s class of preschoolers. So far, Davies said, the preschool has screened or has appointments to screen about 218 students. It takes about two hours to do a full screening process.

They currently have about 45 slots open for May 28-30. Guardians can call the preschool at 744-1722 to schedule an appointment. Davies said those slots might fill up fast, so it’s better to schedule a time as soon as possible. Students ages 3 and 4 are eligible for the screening.

This year, the preschool graduated about 190 students.

“We got to replace all those kids,” Davies said. “And I’m quite ambitious. So I want to be big, and I want more. I want to have a greater, wider impact in the community and reach more kiddos.”

Christy said to keep the preschool growing at its current rate the district will be updating ist facility plans which he hopes will include a new preschool as a priority — something previous board members asked for as well.

“I can remember when I came here 14 years ago, the preschool program was in mobile units out behind each of the schools,” Christy said. “… But this building is a building of nothing but preschool. This is a school, not a program, and that’s rare to find.”