Well, this is a fine thing. Not.

The Friendship School, one of the best ideas Waterford, New London and the state of Connecticut ever shared, could lose the Waterford half of its kindergartners and pre-K pupils because of dicey funding that the Waterford Board of Education just couldn't take any more.

This at a time when educators and leaders at all levels continue to call for universal pre-kindergarten as the best way to prepare children for successful schooling and a promising future. 

The purpose-built school in Waterford's Civic Triangle has been enrolling young children from both communities since it opened in 2005. Run by the regional education agency LEARN, it averages about 520 students evenly divided between the town and the city. It is the only regional pre-K and kindergarten magnet school in the state.

The school would be a terrible thing to lose. But it would be premature to predict the end of the collaboration. Rather, it's time to recognize the Friendship School's value and act to preserve it.

Funding has primarily been from state funds for pre-K and for magnet schools, both of which have been policy priorities for the Malloy administration and the state Department of Education but are now victims of budget cuts. LEARN, which is not a state agency but a regional service center that provides various programs used by local schools, operates the Friendship School with state and local funds.

In the school year that just concluded, New London and Waterford paid about $100,000 apiece in tuition, or something like $384 per student as their share. In the new school year, each will owe about $350,000 for the same services. It's the years following that have the Waterford school board running scared.

Faced with possible annual fees of a half million dollars or more, Waterford has done the math that says the bottom line to educate kindergartners with two or three new teachers would be lower than that bill.

But only kindergartners. The losers would be the 3- and 4-year-olds, their parents and the two communities that have seen the school fulfill its mission of academic readiness for kindergarten and a bridge between suburban and urban families.

Waterford school officials say they hated to give the required one-year notice of withdrawal, but they consider it a cry for help.

To establish the Friendship School's contribution to the subsequent success of its young alumni, LEARN and the participating districts ought to be able to report their readiness and achievement as a group moving through the local schools. In a New London first-grade classroom, for example, are they better prepared with letters and shapes than those with no pre-K? Does a Waterford fourth-grade class score better in reading because it has a number of Friendship graduates?

Less measurable but easily observed: In these troubled times, are friendships being made that outlast the pre-K and kindergarten years and help people see each other as neighbors?

Indeed, the school itself could be doing a far better job of demonstrating its impact.

One of the triggers for this crisis was the delayed payment of appropriated state funds to LEARN in the past school year, which showed Waterford and New London what can happen when the state doesn't meet its obligations on time. The local school system's obligation is to educate children K-12, so with less reliable future funding and an additional cut to its overall state support, Waterford is choosing, for now, to cut back to the basic mandatory grades.

The Republican minority in the General Assembly including Rep. Kathleen McCarty, who represents Waterford, bemoan the fact that their proposed budget would have kept education funding intact but was never allowed to be debated.

That was bad, but it is in the past. Right now is the time for elected officials to look at this particular victim of budget cuts, find a way to stabilize the funding, and keep the little kids learning.