Waterford — Waterford parents who are deciding where to send their small children to preschool this year had a choice: choose a private school or day care, pay more than $4,000 for their child to attend the magnet Friendship School, or take a chance on the brand-new pre-kindergarten classes at Waterford’s Great Neck Elementary School.

The class lists for both the Friendship School and Great Neck’s pre-kindergarten program won't be finalized until about a month into the school year, so it’s not yet clear how many parents have defected from the previously tuition-free Friendship School once learning of the tuition charge.

But Waterford’s decision to end its agreement with the New London school district to share the costs of The Friendship School has changed the landscape of early childhood education in the town significantly, effectively putting an end to the vision of a two-town partnership and bringing pre-kindergarten back into the Waterford public school district’s purview after more than 12 years.

More than a dozen parents of the 33 students enrolled in the two Great Neck pre-kindergarten classes sat on tiny chairs and watched their kids draw with brand-new crayons at an open house event at the school Monday evening.

Billie Shea, a former principal at the Stanton Network Elementary School in Norwich, stood at the door of one of the classrooms, introducing herself to parents as the new Great Neck principal.

Shea will begin her first day of school in Waterford on Wednesday alongside the young students in Waterford's first district-run pre-kindergarten program since The Friendship School opened in 2005.

The district announced it would be building the pre-kindergarten program this year, shortly after the Waterford Board of Education announced last spring that it would be ending the 12-year agreement with New London to help fund The Friendship School because of what is called insufficient support in the state budget for early education costs.

Families from both districts can still apply and enter a lottery for pre-kindergarten and kindergarten spots at The Friendship School, joined by families in other Connecticut towns. The districts still will be obligated under federal and state law to cover the tuition cost of any kindergarten student age 5 or older who is accepted to the school, as well as all students’ special education costs.

But LEARN, the organization that runs The Friendship School, must now ask the parents of pre-kindergarten students above a certain income threshold to pay student tuitions of about $4,000, LEARN Director Eileen Howley said Monday.

The Friendship School has still attracted about the same number of students as it had in previous years, and Howley she expects the school to open Wednesday at or near full capacity.

Two kindergarten classrooms at Great Neck were converted to pre-kindergarten classes, and the rest of the school has had to adjust, Shea said.

Other classrooms moved around, and new class schedules were designed to minimize disruptions for the 3- and 4-year-olds. The pre-kindergarten students will eat lunch and take art classes in their classrooms, have their own bathrooms, and play on their own designated playground.

Karen and Ryan Ort, who live in Quaker Hill, said their daughter attended The Friendship School last year.

The tuition would not have prohibited the Orts from sending their daughter back to The Friendship School, Karen Ort said.

“It was worth it to us, if that’s what we had to do,” she said Monday, watching her daughter draw with crayons.

They entered the LEARN lottery and won a spot for Grace at The Friendship School, she said, but convenience and novelty won out. Great Neck is closer to her husband’s parents’ house, she said, and they heard from Ryan’s sister, a Waterford teacher, that the new pre-kindergarten program at Great Neck would be just as good as The Friendship School’s offerings.

“This was our first choice,” she said.

They weren't alone, Shea said. The Great Neck pre-kindergarten program has had a long wait list since the deadline for applications passed, and many parents hoping to send their 3- and 4-year-olds to Great Neck will have to find another options.

Ultimately, Waterford Superintendent Thomas Giard said, building an in-house pre-kindergarten program from scratch will be cheaper to the district over the long term than it would have been to continue to pay LEARN to stay in the Friendship School agreement with New London.

The district has spent about $30,000 on startup material costs, plus the salaries for two new teachers who started in June to run the two classrooms. One of the teachers, Nicole Thibeault, is a former special education teacher at The Friendship School.

Dave Riley said he would have sent his son, Luke, back to The Friendship School for another year of pre-kindergarten, but the prospect of a $4,000 bill for the school year led him and his wife to apply for one of the spots at Great Neck.

Luke liked The Friendship School, Riley said, but “this was free,” he said. “So we decided to try this.”

m.shanahan@theday.com