CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Across the bridge, more growth is happening for the city of Portland. The school district invited the community out to be a part of the ground breaking ceremony on an incoming Early Childhood Development Center.
Voters have been anticipating this since the bond passed for 37 million dollars in 2020. Since then, in response to the fluctuation in construction costs, the board has approved an additional 16 million dollars for the project.
"It's so cool to see. This is going to be really something amazing for this community," said Jeanine Peoples, mother of two students at T.M. Clark Elementary.
Peoples is also their PTO President and said after seeing the design for the new Early Childhood Development Center, there will be more space and tools for future children to learn and grow.
"They'll have different 18 different exhibits there where they're going to experience things from polar from the savanna to space, the Gulf Coast, pet Central, etc," Peoples said.
Superintendent of Gregory-Portland School District Michelle Cavazos said their goal is to provide a space for learning and literacy to children.
"We know that kids come to start school with a 30 million word gap, depending on their life experiences and opportunities that they've may be able to have had outside of school," Cavazos said. "And so it is our expectation that we will be able to close that gap and when we send them on to first grade there won't be any gap."
According to TEA guidelines, GPISD only offers pre-k for students who meet a certain requirement. Their hope, however, is to expand the "ECDC" opportunity to all students who wish to attend, but it may take some time.
"We do project in the future that we want to provide this universally for all of our students," Cavazos said. "And the first year, we're anticipating starting with those who qualify so that we get our feet under us, and then be able to expand," said Cavazos.
Construction of the facility is good news for parents like Peoples, who continued to share her excitement.
"I'm just excited to see how it's gonna turn out and see how it's gonna be for the new staff and see how these kids are going to really learn and grow," Peoples said.
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