Alison Iddings is fundraising
Learning Together is facing an emergency funding crisis
Learning Together is facing an unexpected funding crisis as delayed state budgets have blocked critical Wake County Public School enrollments.
- Over $80,000 in tuition revenue has already been lost this year due to empty seats.
- The school cannot enroll WCPSS children until January because of the budget delay.
- Despite this lost revenue, Learning Together still must cover teachers, therapists, rent, supplies, food, and insurance.
Learning Together isn’t just a preschool. It’s a long-standing community resource that has supported children and families across Raleigh for more than 50 years.
They provide integrated classrooms where children with developmental delays learn alongside typically developing peers, building empathy and strong social foundations for everyone involved. They employ occupational therapists, speech therapists, and feeding specialists on staff, ensuring that children get the care they need without families taking on additional costs. Since starting there this fall, my son has made remarkable progress thanks to their teachers, therapists, and the supportive, inclusive environment they create.
They also serve families facing financial hardship, offer family support programs, provide early intervention services, and partner with local organizations to strengthen childhood development across our community. Many of the children they serve would have nowhere else to go for this level of support.
My son started at Learning Together this fall, and for the first time, he is truly thriving. These supports have made an enormous difference. He adores his teachers. He plays with his friends. He hugs the staff who greet him every morning. He comes home and talks about the weather. He’s learned to point and share things that interest him. He is excited, engaged, and proud of himself. For the first time, we get to see who he is becoming, not just the challenges he faces.
Learning Together isn’t just a school. It’s a lifeline for families like mine.
But now they need a lifeline from us.
Learning Together is facing an emergency funding crisis due to delays in the NC state budget. Because the General Assembly did not pass a budget on time, the school has been blocked from enrolling any children from the Wake County Public School System until January. Their classrooms are intentionally designed to be half WCPSS students and half private-pay students, so these blocked enrollments leave huge, unavoidable gaps.
This year alone, Learning Together has already lost over $80,000 in tuition from these empty seats — money they will never get back. They still have to pay their teachers, therapists, rent, classroom supplies, food, insurance, and all the costs that make their program possible.
Without this support, Learning Together may have to cut essential services — the very services that allow children with developmental delays to grow, communicate, connect, and thrive.
My son is proof of what this school can do. Many other families depend on them, and hundreds more will in the years ahead. Learning Together has been serving children for more than 50 years. We can’t let this crisis take that away.
If you are able, please consider donating. Any amount helps — truly.
Please also share this far and wide to help us reach people who care about early childhood education, inclusion, and supporting the most vulnerable children in our community.
Thank you for helping protect a place that has given my child — and so many others — the chance to shine.
- B
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