Incoming kindergartners in the Pine Bluff School District will attend school at Forrest Park/Greenville Pre-K starting in July.
PBSD Superintendent Jennifer Barbaree announced the change during Monday’s board meeting.
All 10 of the district’s kindergarten teachers, who are currently based at the elementary schools, will move to the campus at 2501 W. 10th Ave., and more room will be available if needed, Barbaree said.
The move, which did not require board approval, drew applause from the audience inside the board room.
Barbaree said she heard from several parents of pre-K3 and pre-K4 — or those who begin pre-K at ages 3 and 4 — who said they love having their children at Forrest Park/Greenville and wanted the district to keep them there for kindergarten, which is traditionally aligned with grade-school campuses.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
“When I started thinking about that, we started looking at the facility itself and I started researching some data with regard to support of a pre-K center and how this helps with the transition to a pre-K and kindergarten center,” Barbaree said.
The PBSD is moving to a standards-based report card for kindergartners, she added, which would be another feature to monitoring students’ progress before they reach first grade.
“We thought it would be a great transition for pre-K and K to be in the same building,” principal Marceinia Peoples said. “Also, there’s more developmentally appropriate material, resources, playgrounds … that’s already set up at the preschool, and we’ll just extend it on down to kindergarten classrooms.”
Peoples explained the move would also help with the vertical alignment of a child’s learning from pre-K3, or pre-kindergarten for 3-year-olds, to pre-K4 to kindergarten.
“Pre-K and kindergarten teachers have a chance to collaborate, and then our children also have the intervention,” Peoples said. “We have resources right there on campus for kindergarten students needing intervention.”
Children in pre-K who need enrichment opportunities will have access to advanced material, Peoples added.
This will be the first campus realignment since 2023, when Robert F. Morehead Middle and Dollarway High were merged into Pine Bluff junior and senior high schools.