WATERVILLE, Maine (AP) – The number of preschool programs in Maine’s public schools has risen dramatically in recent years as educators and state officials strive to ensure children are ready for school academically and emotionally.

In 2000, 46 schools in Maine had a preschool program, serving a total of 860 students. Now there are nearly twice as many students enrolled in preschool programs in public schools in twice as many schools, according to Jaci Holmes, Child Development Services director for the Department of Education.

“It can be hard for a child when you go from being at home,” said Claudette Massey, Fairfield Primary School Principal. “The preschool program has a focus on language and social skills … but it also provides help transitioning.”

About 70 preschool students in the School Administrative District 49 program make up a sizable portion of the school population at the 180-student, pre-k-to-kindergarten school in Fairfield. But the program is not alone.

“There are more than 1,600 children being served in these programs,” said Janine Blatt, an early childhood consultant with the state Department of Education. “The goal, long-term, is equity and access, in terms of every 4-year-old having access to some kind of early childhood program.”

Holmes said studies on brain development and young children indicate youths benefit from experiencing a school setting before kindergarten.

A four-decade study by the High/Scope Educational Research Foundation on the effects of early education on low-income 3- and 4-year-olds in Ypsilanti, Mich., tracked study participants to the age of 40.

Participants who attended a preschool program in their early years, compared to those who had not, had higher high school graduation rates, were more likely to have jobs at the age of 40, had higher median annual earnings and fewer arrests.

“We’ve seen a positive impact on kids’ reading scores and early literacy skills,” said Cornelia Brown, Augusta Schools superintendent. “Early intervention makes a huge difference.”

While the curriculum generally involves learning classroom behavior, preschool programs in public schools and their funding sources are not all the same in Maine. Some are run by individual school districts and funded by the state.

The state paid $3.8 million to support preschools in public schools this year. Funding was included in the state’s new Essential Programs and Services school funding model, officials said.

Patti Woolley, director of Child and Family Services at Kennebec Valley Community Action Program, supports state Department of Education efforts to increase access to preschool to more Maine 4-year-olds.

But she said it will take a mix of preschool programs to create universal access to them in Maine. Many schools in the southern part of the state, for example, lack classroom space to add preschool programs.

Regardless of having such programs within a school, Woolley said they are valuable. “It is not a matter of dumbing down kindergarten. It’s a matter of creating programs that really meet the needs of 4-year-olds,” she said.