Texas Woman’s University has partnered with Bezos Academy to create an on-campus, full-day, tuition-free preschool for children of the university’s students, as well as the local Denton, Texas community. Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, established the non-profit Bezos Academy to increase access to early childhood education in under-resourced communities. The new school at Texas Woman’s University will become the next academy in the organization’s network, which presently includes 19 other schools across Washington, Texas, and Florida.
In addition to offering support to families in need, Texas Woman’s University’s preschool, which will be named Bezos Academy Denton, will provide educational opportunities to university students studying childhood education and development. It will include six classrooms with room for 120 children between the ages of three and five. The school will reserve 20 percent of its availability to children of university students; the remaining spots will be available to children in the Denton area. To be eligible to apply for enrollment, the child must be between the age of three and four, whose family earns up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level.
“One in five college students in America is also a parent. That means they have to focus on their educational and professional achievement, while ensuring their child starts life off on the right foot,” said Mike George, president of Bezos Academy. “By bringing tuition-free, full-day preschools to schools like Texas Woman’s University, we’re hoping to help student-parents and members of their surrounding community nurture their children’s love of learning without sacrificing their own.”