In early February, we urged the Sampson County Board of Education to put the brakes on thoughts of eliminating or cutting seats in their Pre-K program, citing the detriment it would cause to the county’s youngsters, many who can ill afford to be held back from any possible educational opportunity that will give them a leg up on their academic future.

We still feel that way about the program and the county’s participation, but we understand a little better the conundrum the county finds itself in. We also applaud the Clinton City Board of Education and its administration for charging into the fray and offering to take 27 of the 120 seats the county system has, ensuring at least that many seats won’t leave the county and possibly never come back.

In a nutshell, that’s what this all boils down to — seats are allocated to Sampson by way of both school systems that, if abandoned, likely won’t get reassigned to the county down the road, a loss that will eventually impact children and their parents who would be eligible for the Pre-K program.

For Sampson County Schools, the 120 seats amount to about $500,000 in teacher salaries and classroom space for the program, money that has to be set aside even if all the slots are not filled in a given school year, something county administrators and school board members don’t think they can afford to keep doing.

But returning the slots to the state, which administers the Pre-K program, means those slots will be handed off to another county and likely won’t be available when there is an influx of four-year-olds who desperately need what the program offers.

Started in 2001 as More at Four, the program is designed to provide high-quality educational experiences for eligible four-year-old children. Requirements are built on the premise that to be successful academically in school, children need to be prepared in five developmental areas believed to be critical to children’s overall well-being and success in reading and math as they enter school. Those areas are: approaches to play and learning; emotional and social development; health and physical development; language development and communication; and cognitive development.

It has, over the last couple decades, proven to help children ease into the school climate and be better prepared for kindergarten.

Both Clinton City and Sampson County schools have benefited from the program since its inception, or more precisely, children in the two public school systems have found their academic way thanks to Pre-K. It is disheartening, if not alarming, to think we could lose any of those seats.

We understand the county school’s financial woes.Without the supplemental tax that their counterparts in the city system have access to, Sampson has always had to borrow from Peter to pay Paul to ensure county students had the same advantages that those in the city system have had.

We empathize with the current county Board of Education, understanding the challenges members face with regards to financing, but we cannot applaud cost-cutting measures that will hurt children. And we firmly believe cutting seats or eliminating the Pre-K program altogether would do just that — hurt our children.

We urge administrators and school board members to put their collective heads together to figure a way around eliminating or cutting the program, especially now that the city system has offered to take 27 of those seats.

Parents still have the strongest voice, and we urge them to consider joining our plea to find other avenues of savings that won’t directly impact the academic futures of young people.

With state and federal lawmakers doing their best to dismantle the solid public education that most of us benefited from as we grew up, it is in the hands of our local boards of education to provide support for academics, a support that is needed so all our children have an opportunity to be among the best and the brightest.

Doing less short-changes all our future, not the least of which belongs to our children.