Prairie South School Division (PSSD) presented some stats on its Early Learning Programs at this month's board meeting.

"Prairie South has been very active in supporting the development of both Ministry funded and Prairie South funded early learning programs," said Superintendent of Learning Amanda Olson.

PSSD has 17 Prekindergarten programs, 15 of which are full. 

Both programs receive support services from the Learning Department such as speech & language pathologists, psychologists, advocacy and behaviour consultants and more, depending on the needs of the students. 

There are 83 students in Prekindergarten who are receiving speech support. Kindergarten educators are responsible for administering the Early Years Evaluation Teacher Assessment (EYETA) each fall and a select number of students are reassessed in the spring. 

There were 426 Kindergarten students assessed in the fall of 2022. When comparing the pre-pandemic data (2019) to this year’s data, PSSD saw a 6% increase in the overall results.

A federally funded program called the Early Learning Intensive Supports (ELIS) Program expanded in 2022 with a total of 12 spots in PSSD (6 programs).