Preschool classes will resume Monday in the Mid-Prairie School District. On November 4, the Mid-Prairie school board voted to temporarily suspend preschool for three- and four-year-olds following an increase in COVID-19 absences among students and staff.  Superintendent Mark Schneider says he met with West Elementary principal Bill Poock Wednesday to reassess the situation and it was decided, as long as no new positive cases developed, preschoolers would return to the classroom November 16. Schneider says it’s very important to get the kids back in school, “Our first priority is to have in-person learning, there’s not an educator, not a teacher, paraprofessional, administrator that doesn’t believe that the students need to be in the classroom. Obviously we’re dealing with a health situation, a health challenge now that makes that more difficult, but as long as we feel that the students and employee safety and health is reasonably covered, we’ll try to have in-person learning.” Schneider says Mid-Prairie has always highly valued preschool, even long before it was a voluntary state program.  Mid-Prairie was one of the first school districts that received a state grant for the voluntary program in the spring of 2007. Prior to that, parents paid a fee to attend the district’s preschool unless the child had an IEP(Individualized Education Program).