South Rome Early Learning Center gets scholarships for 10 kids
Grant money will cover a year’s tuition for the students next year.
Ten eligible 3-year-olds attending the South Rome Early Learning Center at Anna K. Davie Elementary will have their tuition paid for next school year through a grant the center has recently been awarded.
Director Teri Oberg said the center was awarded the grant due to it receiving the highest quality rating from Bright from the Start: Georgia’s Department of Early Care and Learning combined with the demographic of the students it serves. She will attend training this summer to find out more about eligibility requirements, which focus on income and the status of a student’s family in either working or going to school for 24 hours a week.
“It is excellent news,” Oberg said. “We are very excited about it.”
The scholarships cover the $117 tuition cost per week for 10 students, said Charles Looney, the executive director of the South Rome Redevelopment Corp., which is a partner in the center along with Berry College and Rome City Schools. He said the scholarships replace a grant which came to an end this year.
The center is accepting enrollment right now. Parents whose child will be 3 years old on or before Sept. 1 can apply. Contact Oberg at toberg@berry.edu or 706232-4913, ext. 2960.
Oberg said the goal is to fill the 10 slots with children of South Rome families, but if they cannot find eligible families there then they will open it up to other Rome families.
Also, Looney said the corporation is pursuing a new funding stream for more fundraising for not only the early learning center but for its other efforts. However, he did not want to share more — other than that it was a new type of fundraising which could meet the $50,000 goal — about what the new funding stream is until the executive committee votes on it during a meeting Tuesday.
This new option follows news that Rome City Schools will be unable to pay the salaries of the two teachers and two assistant teachers the center has. Around two months ago, as the partners started working on forming a new memorandum of understanding, it was proposed the school system would take on the cost of teacher salaries.
Rome Board Chairwoman Faith Collins said it was originally thought the system could use the literacy grant for salaries. However, it cannot.
But, Superintendent Lou Byars said money from the $1.26 million L4GA — Literacy for Learning, Living and Leading in Georgia — grant specifically allotted for “birth to 5” spending could be used on supplies. The system could provide around $13,000 for supplies for two classrooms. To access the grant, the system has to have a budget on how grant funds will be used approved by the state Department of Education.