Wake County program makes preschool free for families struggling with costs

More children in Wake County could have access to free preschool.

The Wake ThreeSchool Early Learning Program plans to expand and it's free to qualified families.

One parent told WRAL News she couldn't work without the program.

Happy Face Preschool is one of several child care centers participating in the Wake ThreeSchool program. It's making preschool available for dozens of families who otherwise couldn't afford it.

Three-year-old Lorelai is thriving in preschool. Her mom, Nicole Lockamy, said Lorelai is doing great in her school classroom.

"She is just such a different kid," Locamy said. "We also had the opportunity for a speech pathologist here so she has speech therapy as well."

Lockamy and her husband have three older kids. She said they couldn't afford preschool for Lorelai if she wasn't in the ThreeSchool program, which is free to qualified families.

'One of us would stay home and hope that we could get remote work or something along those lines," said Lockamy. "Otherwise we would have just struggled financially until she could go into kindergarten."

According to the North Carolina Early Education Coalition, pre-K education better prepares kids for success in kindergarten and beyond.

Serena Robinson, program director at Happy Face Preschool, said it also helps educators detect potential issues early.

"We were identifying developmental delays that wouldn't actually get identified until they were four or five years old," Robinson said.