IRWINDALE - A Partnership between Covina-Valley Unified School District and Los Angeles Universal Preschool (LAUP) has resulted in a new preschool that currently offers high-quality early childhood education services to nearly 50 children at minimal cost to their families.

During a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by about 50 people today at Merwin Elementary School campus, where the preschool is located, district officials said the preschool fills an important need in the community for affordable quality preschool education, at a time when many families are struggling to make ends meet.

"There's been a need to fill this gap in our community for a long time," said Julie Caston-Hicks, the school district's director of Child Development. "We have state preschools for low-income families, and we have private preschools that can be quite expensive. There are many working families who fall somewhere in between. They don't qualify for state preschool, but cannot afford private preschool, so this affords parents the opportunity to send their children to a high-quality preschool to better prepare them for kindergarten and beyond."

The Merwin LAUP Preschool was made possible thanks to a $476,013 investment by LAUP, a non-profit organization committed to making voluntary preschool accessible to all four-year-olds in Los Angeles County. Additionally, LAUP will spend about $206,000 per year on operations. As a result, parents only pay a $30 parent investment fee each month to while their children are enrolled.

"We are pleased that our partnership with the school district means that more children in this community will be prepared for kindergarten by receiving a high-quality preschool education," said Gary Mangiofico, CEO of LAUP. "Studies tell us that children who attend preschool often end up benefiting greatly both in school and later in life. That is why our goal is to make preschool universally accessible both here and throughout Los Angeles County."

This new facility, added upon the 297 preschool spaces currently funded by LAUP in the area, means that 22 percent of the four-year-olds in the 91706 zip code (which includes parts of Irwindale, Baldwin Park, Covina and surrounding communities) now have access to high-quality preschool. So far, LAUP has spent $3.1 million on building six new preschools in the area. That has resulted in 15 full-time jobs being created at a time of difficult economic times experienced by many communities.