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By  Jen Lawhead

Director of Community Education

You know the famous saying, “Everything I need to know I learned in kindergarten?” The same could be said of the Community Learning Center: “Everything you need to know about Early Childhood, you can find at the CLC.”

Want to know how to help your toddler brush their teeth and get to bed on time? Our Early Childhood Parent Educator can help you.

Have concerns that your child is not meeting their developmental milestones? Our Early Childhood Special Education and Early Childhood Screening teams can support you in finding answers to your questions and access to resources.

Want to know how to engage your children in meaningful play that will prepare them to learn to read? Our licensed teachers do this all day long.

The Community Learning Center at Austin Public Schools is home to Early Childhood Family Education, Early Childhood Screening, Early Childhood Special Education.

In addition, we offer a four-star Parent Aware rated 3- and 4-year-old preschool program, and our classes are taught by teachers licensed by the state of Minnesota. Applications for the 2022-2023 school year ​will be available on March 23. Since 2017, Austin Public Schools has been fortunate to receive funding from the state for Voluntary Prekindergarten programming. In addition, our program has access to state funding for Pathways scholarships for qualifying families.

Along with having access to financial supports for preschool tuition, our program has a collaborative model to support students with special education needs. Our general education and special education teams work in tandem to meet the needs of each student in our classrooms. We also have a school social worker, psychologist, occupational therapist, physical therapist and speech/language pathologists on our team to support the varied needs of children in our programs. We have two success coaches at the CLC that support families who speak languages other than English.

Minnesota state law requires that every child have an early childhood screening prior to entering kindergarten. We offer this service to families one Friday a month at the CLC. This screener is not a “test” to see if your child can go to kindergarten but is a tool to review basic motor, academic, and social skills while providing access to support.

We welcome you to reach out to the CLC to learn more about Early Childhood education in Austin as we are here to serve our community by nurturing our littlest learners.