Before they even get to kindergarten, Warsaw Community Schools is helping to educate local children.
Monday, the WCS Board of School Trustees heard a half-hour presentation on the pre-kindergarten readiness programs that the school corporation offers.
Superintendent Dr. David Hoffert explained, “The way that this came actually about was, our Greater Cooperative, which runs a cooperative preschool out at Madison Elementary School, was renewing their lease for this next year. I started thinking about this and like, ‘Wow, when we really look at all the pre-kindergarten readiness programs that we have in Warsaw Community Schools, our community, I don’t think, understands the incredible magnitude of it.’ Because not only do we have the Greater Co-op that’s going on, we also have the Head Start programs inside of our schools. We also have our own WELA (Warsaw Early Learning Academy) for our kids over at the Warsaw Area Career Center for our employees’ kids going on. And then we also offer a wide variety of different services in our Jefferson preschool class, and then we also service in many other preschools that are outside in the community.”
He said if one looks at the developmental preschools, the daycare, the childcare, the pre-kindergarten readiness, “it’s a huge offering that Warsaw Community Schools has that most people don’t know about.”
GWCP
Greater Warsaw Cooperative Preschool (GWCP) wasn’t able to attend Monday’s meeting, but provided a slide and information that Hoffert shared.
GWCP is in their second year at Madison Elementary School. In 2024-25, for two days a week, they have an enrollment of 11 3- and 4-year-olds. For three days a week, they have 16 4- and 5-year-olds.
“But the exciting part is, they want to continue to expand,” Hoffert stated.
WCS’ agreement with GWCP is they have a rental agreement for the space GWCP uses inside a WCS school and enrollment depends on where it’s at. It’s at Madison this year, and there will be room at Madison next year for it to continue on there. Hoffert said GWCP wants to expand to do a second class.
“They are creating a five-day class for their 4- and 5-year-olds for the very first time,” he said.

    Head Start Director Kathryn Fields explains all the services Head Start offers during Monday night’s Warsaw School Board meeting. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union
  

Periodically, the preschools have joint activities with the kindergarteners. “So these students are already getting prepared to come in at the kindergarten level,” Hoffert continued. Kindergarten teachers love it and the preschools get to see what a kindergarten class looks like.
WELA
Warsaw Area Career Center Director/Principal Ben Barkey introduced Amelia Hedges, WELA director. She said they currently serve 41 students, from ages 6 weeks to 5 years.
“We are currently working on getting training to get a curriculum set in place, which is going to be offered through the YMCA, and that is based out of Purdue University. It’s called Early Learning Matters, so our preschool classes will actually have a curriculum set in place, which will have education-based learning standards that will be close to what the Indiana guidelines are for kindergarten readiness. So we’re preparing our preschoolers to go straight into kindergarten,” Hedges said, adding that they’ll be working with the kindergarten teachers to bridge the gap between preschool and kindergarten.
She talked about how the program has expanded from the original one room with 10 kids to five classrooms, including two toddler classrooms, an infant classroom and a preschool and pre-K classroom.
Hedges said she’s talked to a lot of the teachers at the high school and some of the elementary school teachers. “If we weren’t able to provide the services that we do, they would probably not be working, especially with the parents that have multiple children,” she said.
Hoffert said, “I do believe it’s one of the biggest perks and offers that we can give young families here. It’s providing childcare where they feel like their child is safe. They know that they’re here at school, that they’re well taken care of and we’re able to do it for a very affordable cost for them.”
Head Start
Head Start has had a presence inside of WCS since 2016.
Kathryn Fields, Head Start director, said they started in the Claypool and Leesburg classrooms that year. Since then, they’ve moved around a bit but are still within WCS. Currently, they’re serving 50 children at Claypool, Lincoln and Harrison elementary schools, and still have two classrooms on South Buffalo Street.
“Throughout the county, we are federally funded for 102 preschool children. Fifty in those three classes, 36 then at our main site, so we’re anticipating 61 children from our current program to move on to kindergarten in the fall and I believe 54 or 55 should transition into the Warsaw Community Schools, so a large majority of our students do end up in one of the Warsaw schools,” she stated.
As of a couple weeks ago, Fields said they’re very encouraged that Head Start isn’t being eliminated in the president’s budget, but she encouraged everyone to keep advocating for Head Start.
As for the services they offer, she said they focus on school readiness for pre-natal to 5 years old as they also have an Early Head Start program.
“But we are a comprehensive program. We support families through getting all the health needs of their children that is a requirement - dental, physicals, immunizations. They’re coming to you ready because they have to have those things for Head Start,” Fields said. “In addition to that, we have a family service team that works very closely with many of the agencies in the community to get our families on Medicaid, SNAP, public assistance. We work very closely with the homeless liaison for transportation because we have a lot of children experiencing homelessness.”

    Warsaw School Board President Heather Reichenbach (L) listens as Superintendent Dr. David Hoffert talks about the preschool services the school corporation offers. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union
  

She said that’s just a few things that they do, but she couldn’t speak highly enough of their partnership with WCS.
Of the 102 children Head Start supports, 47 have an Individual Education Plan (IEP), with 40 of those being in WCS. An IEP outlines the goals and any support services that may be needed for a child to succeed in school.
School Board President Heather Reichenbach asked how families and children get referred to Head Start.
Fields said right now is recruitment time for Head Start.
“So, community events, we’re out there, ‘please apply now.’ We do start with the children who are at the federal poverty line, so 100% poverty is the number one way to get in, but then it goes up from there. We’re allowed to take a few children who are over income, but they must have some other need, so while we’re income-based, we like to say we’re needs-based because if they come in with an already-diagnosed disability, or we know it’s coming or a referral is coming, it’s a point-based system. So it’s not first-come, first-served, it’s what the family needs,” she explained.
At the top of the list are incarcerated families, kinship families and homeless families.
More information about Head Start and its programs can be found at Cardinalservices.org.
WCS Programs
WCS offers a number of preschool services inside and beyond its buildings. Three of WCS’ four special education preschool teachers - Trish Price, Baylie Plank and Stacey Ousley - along with Tina Northern, assistant director for special services, spoke about those.
WCS Director of Special Services Kelly Meeks said the four teachers “travel to different schools and provide services to students with IEPs. Many people think that a public school takes over at age 5. Well, if it’s a student with a disability that already has an IEP, public education takes over at age 3 and first steps, there’s a transition conference and then these ladies step in and provide the services.”
Ousley said, “We think this is the best job of the corporation just because we are the first educators that our parents work with. So we are laying that groundwork for our kids and we do evaluations. Our first steps are evaluations.”
Those students are then placed in community preschools that have been contracted with, but the teachers continue to work with the children. Ousley said they can be found everywhere, from Presby Preschool and Kiddie Kollege to Sacred Heart, Lakeland Christian and working with homeschooled students, among other places.
Price said her program is for those kids who have more intense needs, as far as with their IEP. They may be a little more lower functioning.
“It’s really a great program. I love being at Jefferson. I love when my kids are learning how to walk in the hall. Especially my developmental preschoolers, they’re learning where they’re really going to be because Jefferson is probably going to be their home school, so that familiarity and the principal and all the teachers know them,” Price said.
Ousley said 165 kids with IEPs will be going to kindergarten, including those in Head Start. She said that number gets “bigger and bigger every year.”
After all the presentations were complete, Hoffert said he’s added up all the numbers and, “Our total number of pre-kindergarten kids serviced with Warsaw Community Schools is 221. That’s almost a half class of incoming kindergarten kids. Wow. Just wow. So much of the time we talk about how we’re K through 12. We’re definitely much more earlier than K, and we go much later than 12 when we look at adult education.”