The board of a regional special education cooperative unanimously agreed Wednesday night to continue to offer a Parent-Infant Education program for at-risk preschoolers.
It’s unknown, though, how many members of the Mt. Prospect-based Northwest Suburban Special Education Organization will continue to pay to send children to the program.
“What they passed was the opportunity for school districts to buy into the program–if they’re willing to do so,” said Kathy Schrock, director of children’s services at the Clearbrook Center for the Handicapped, Rolling Meadows.
Dawn Winkelman, PIE program administrator, noted that Elk Grove Township Elementary District 59 already has voted to continue in the program.
The program is needed, Winkelman said, because “if (children) go without intervention prior to age 3, the costs to the districts to serve these children will be greater later on.”
The PIE program provides diagnostic and treatment services to children up to age 3 from Elementary Districts 21, 23, 25, 26, 57 and 59.
