Five-year-old Marlaina Paulding likes playing in the tents in her VPK classroom at Felix A. Williams Elementary School in Martin County. She likes learning the alphabet and numbers, and the Spanish ...

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA)— More than 13,000 families are participating in Florida’s Voluntary Prekindergarten Program and the Florida Prepaid College Savings Plan within the first couple of months since it ...

The Voluntary Prekindergarten Education Program is designed to prepare 4-year-olds for kindergarten and develop the skills they need to become successful students as well as good readers. In VPK, the ...

TAMPA, Fla., June 15, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Parents of preschoolers now have many options in early childhood education. These may include half or full day private programs like church preschool or in ...

Malcolm McKey and a dozen other voluntary pre-kindergarten students sit crisscross applesauce in their Lincoln Park Primary classroom Wednesday afternoon and clap in unison as they count to 20. The ...

The practice round was rough. When Florida implemented a new Kindergarten Readiness test last fall — designed to determine if the state's thousands of Voluntary PreKindergarten (VPK) programs were ...

Florida's first voluntary prekindergarten program began in 2005. The program is free for all 4-year-olds. School-readiness test scores show VPK prepares children for school. This story was updated to ...