Wiscasset is drawing praise for its pre-kindergarten and picking up pointers for making the months-old program even stronger.

“Wiscasset should be very proud of its preschool,” Maine Department of Education early childhood education specialist Sue Reed said in a telephone interview Jan. 27.

“They are off to a great start. It’s just a lovely program.”

Reed based her view on a Jan. 6 visit to Wiscasset Elementary School’s pre-K. The town opened the program last fall, just as a new state law kicked in that calls for site visits to public preschools at least every three years. Expanding ones, and new ones like Wiscasset’s, are getting visits this year, Reed said.

Starting in 2017, the law applies to all public preschools. 

In Wiscasset, Reed recommends adding a fence where the playground faces a driveway; having staff sit with students at breakfast as she saw them do during snack; and, for some of the read-alouds, using a less predictable book than the one she heard on her visit.

The driveway is not used during school hours, the report notes; staff showed students how to cross it.

Reed told the Wiscasset Newspaper she would never expect a first-year program to meet every item on the checklist.

The program already has a sense of community and good relationships with students, she said. “I was incredibly impressed.”

Children took pride in classroom cleanup. They raised two fingers when told an activity had two minutes to go.

One child got a tissue for an upset classmate.

“Empathy has been encouraged ... These kinds of behaviors do not just ‘happen’ in a classroom,” Reed writes in the report. “They are developed with hard work and modeling from the teacher.”

Amy Mitchell teaches the pre-K. The names of the teacher and other staff were redacted in the report the Superintendent of Schools Office provided. Information that relates to observing an employee is confidential, Superintendent of Schools Heather Wilmot states in an email.

Staff spoke positively toward children throughout the day, according to the report.

“The emotional climate of this classroom is exemplary,” Reed writes.

The curriculum, enrollment policy, relationships with parents and local agencies, and plans for students’ transition to kindergarten are all still being developed, according to the report. The adult-child ratio, class size of 16 students a session, indoor and outdoor spaces, daily schedule, activity areas, meals, support for students’ special needs, management of student records, and the quality of teacher-child interactions all met state standards.

The information in the report will be a good resource, Wiscasset Elementary Principal Mona Schlein told the School Committee Jan. 28.