Prince William County Public Schools

This story features an activity that took place prior to school closures due to COVID-19.

Thanks to a partnership between Smart Beginnings Greater Prince William (GPW) and the Prince William Chamber of Commerce, a handful of local business leaders visited early childhood education classrooms at Washington-Reid Preschool Center, reading stories with 100 of PWCS' youngest students. Smart Beginnings GPW is dedicated to advocating for quality early childhood health and education programs and working with parents, educators, health providers and businesses to deliver them. Smart Beginnings GPW is a program operated through SPARK, the Education Foundation for PWCS.

"The students enjoyed having special visitors read to them," shared Stacy Williams, administrative intern at Washington-Reid Preschool.

This is Washington Reid's first year as a Preschool Center. The Center promotes inclusion of the two preschool programs it serves, the Virginia Preschool Initiative (VPI) for 4-year-olds and the special education programs for 2- to 4-year-olds who have special needs.

"With the Smart Beginnings GPW mission to promote early literacy for children (birth to age five), parent engagement, and professional development for preschool and family daycare directors, we chose to bring readers to the Washington-Reid Preschool Center to highlight the importance of early reading for brain development and school readiness," said Tawnya Soltis, executive director of Smart Beginnings GPW. "We also wanted to draw attention to the fact that we have a public preschool center in Prince William County."

Smart Beginnings GPW is the only donor-funded regional organization exclusively dedicated to advocating for quality early childhood health and education programs and working with parents, educators, health providers and businesses to deliver them.

Each year, Smart Beginnings GPW partners with the Prince William Public Library System to bring celebrity readers to 10 library branches. And, over the past four years, Smart Beginnings GPW has also brought elected officials from each of the three jurisdictions (Prince William, Manassas Park, and Manassas City) to area libraries where they read to several hundred children and their parents during regularly scheduled story times.