Budget cuts

Our school district is facing some pretty massive budget cuts (as I'm sure most around the country are). Unfortunately for us one of the programs on the chopping block is preschool, and our son will be entering his last year of preschool in the fall. He's in a special blended classroom (with one day a week in a class with all kids on the autism spectrum for special instruction), and I've been told multiple times that he would not do well in a typical community preschool. I'm really not sure what we'll do if there is no preschool program next year, I'm really concerned that all he's learned in the past 2 years will be undone in a large part.

Beyond my own selfish reasons for wanting the preschool program to remain intact, I want it to be there for my younger son. He will not need the program himself, but when it comes time for him to enter kindergarten I want his peers to have had the chance to be in the preschool program. If cutting funds for classroom size keeps the preschool program, I believe that the tradeoff would be worth it. If there are one or two special education students in his classroom that have not had the opportunity to learn the skills that come with the special ed preschool, that will more than negate the lower student to teacher ratio.

The cost for a year of preschool is slightly lower than the cost for two days of teacher training (professional development days). This boggles my mind.