Cheryl Mills and her staff have been working on ways to relieve the shortage of available slots in the BHK preschool program throughout the three county area. Among the goals is an expansion of in-school services offered by BHK.

“We’ve requested a change in our Head Start and our Early Head Start grants to try to meet the needs of the families better,” said Mills, executive director of child development. “We’re waiting for approval, and we’re hoping to increase infant/toddler classrooms in Houghton and in L’Anse to expand the number of slots we have, as well as hopefully getting preschools in a couple more local school districts, so we’ll actually have classrooms within the school to ease transition and to better partner with the schools.”

Mills and her staff have been attentive to the comments and suggestions received from the community in regards to a lack enrollment opportunities for children.

“We’re trying to listen to parents’ needs and we’re also trying to look at having more full-day enrollment slots instead of as many part-days in the past, because parents are working or going to school, or both. Or they just understand the importance of early childhood education and want their children to be prepared for kindergarten,” Mills said.

In the meantime, even as the current school year is still in session, BHK is preparing for the next year.

“We’ve already started taking applications for fall,” Mills said. “We offer some programs year round. We offer year-round preschool and Early Head Start. GE (Great Explorations), as well, goes year-round.”