RIO RANCHO, N.M. — Rio Rancho Public Schools is looking into the possibility of expanding its preschool services but leaders first want to hear from parents.

District leaders want to better understand what they need to do to expand Pre-K before they get a new grant to pay for it.

The main question is, do parents want a full day of pre-K, or a half a day? The district include it in the survey they sent to parents Monday evening.

“We sent the survey to parents to see how many parents would like to have full day pre-K versus half day pre-K? Would they need transportation? And so we wanted to get community information to figure out how many families will be interested in that expansion opportunity,” Chenault said.

This all started back in February. The New Mexico Early Childhood Development and Care Department announced they were going to continue their investment in early childhood care and education.

Questions, like half-day vs. full-day, may seem like a small decision but it’s a big one. It will affect the number of pre-K students the district will be able to serve.

“And that will help us decide on location and also how many additional classrooms we’re going to need, how many additional teachers we’re going to need. And that will help us make a decision, as a committee, our first step in that expansion process for the next grant,” Chenault said.

They also want to know what areas these students are coming from. RRPS currently serves 460 half-day students. Parents have the option to sign their kids up for an AM and PM session.

That could change.

“We may need to move to a full day. That would reduce the number of students we could serve, if that happens to be the case. So we really need to think about how we’re going to continue to serve the 460 we have and additional students,” Chenault said.

The grant will provide $25,000 for each classroom the renovate. It will also provide $10,000 for things like furniture and other needs for each new classroom the district adds.

Parents have until Friday at 5 p.m. to take the survey. Click here to access it.