District 150 teachers, administrators and city officials are rallying outside Valeska Hinton Early Childhood Center Wednesday morning.
The Peoria Federation of Teachers Local 780 is hosting a walk in at the school, on Peoria’s South Side, in support of early childhood education.
About 445 students are enrolled in pre-kindergarten to first grade at Valeska Hinton. More than 450 children are on the waiting list.
The teachers union says it hopes the walk in will raise awareness of the importance of early childhood ed, in a year when state funding is significantly lower than years past.
"We keep year after year asking the teachers and the staff to do more and more with less, and that's just not sustainable," Lisa Uphoff, a union representative said.
Illinois lawmakers passed a bill last summer that increases K-12 education spending by $244 million and adds $25 million to to the Early Childhood Block Grant. But but Uphoff says most programs will be receiving 97 percent of what they were in 2012.
Next week, District 150 board members are expected to vote on a restructuring measure that would make Valeska Hinton exclusively a preschool. The plan would eliminate the school’s kindergarten and first grade classes and add another preschool class.