Mayor Bruce Harrell passes out a Seattle Preschool Program home learning kit to an excited student. (Photo by John Liu)
SEATTLE — The Denise Louie Education Center in Seattle’s Chinatown-International District, Mayor Bruce Harrell, and Seattle Department of Education and Early Learning (DEEL) Director Dwane Chappelle announced the opening of Seattle Preschool Program (SPP) applications for the 2022-2023 school year on March 15.
This year, the City’s award-winning preschool program will expand with seven additional classrooms and 144 additional seats to provide high-quality preschool programming for Seattle three- and four-year-olds.
Two of the new classrooms will offer dual-language programming and two will offer SPP Plus, which provides inclusive programming for children with disabilities.
SPP is offered by the DEEL in partnership with community-based providers and Seattle Public Schools, with 88 program sites available across the city. With funding from the seven-year Families, Education, Preschool, and Promise Levy, SPP is on track to serve more than 2,500 children by 2026. SPP tuition is free for most Seattle families, with rates for higher income families calculated based on household income and family size.
Susan Yang, director at Denise Louie Education Center, said, “Our longstanding partnership with the DEEL has been invaluable for our program. Many of our families are essential workers who are directly feeling the impact of rising costs and lasting effects of the pandemic. Providing their children with high-quality early learning opportunities at this time is a job we do not take lightly.”
To better support student learning during the pandemic, DEEL has provided more than 8,700 home learning kits for SPP families to encourage parent engagement and support sensory exploration and important foundations for learning and development.
A full list of programs and application materials is available at seattle.gov/applySPP.
Families who need language assistance to complete the application process can contact DEEL at 206-386-1050 or email preschool@seattle.gov.