When Anne Arundel County Schools Superintendent Eric J. Smith this week proposed building an early childhood education center on the site of crumbling Ferndale Elementary School, he was thinking creatively - something state officials say every school system will have to do to meet new education standards in five years.

The new center - if approved by the school board - would be one of the few public educational institutions in Maryland devoted to 4- and 5-year-olds, according to state education officials.

Smith's proposal comes at a time when increased attention is being paid to the academic skills of children before they enter the first grade.

In the spring, state lawmakers adopted a plan to pump more than a billion dollars into local systems to ease disparities. The plan also requires that school systems begin providing increased services to pre-kindergartners and kindergartners.

By 2007, the two-thirds of the state's kindergarten classes that operate in half-days will have to shift to full-day instruction. And free pre-kindergarten will be made available to 4-year-olds from poor families.

Needing more classroom space and teachers to accomplish this, school systems have begun looking for ways to reorganize staff and facilities, said Rolf Grafwallner, coordinator of early learning programs for the State Department of Education.

In the case of Ferndale Elementary, Smith saw a chance to get a head start fulfilling the new state requirements.

"We had an older facility that, in my view, didn't meet the standards required for instruction," Smith said. "It looked like an opportunity for us to meet several needs in a cost-efficient manner."

He has proposed tearing down most of the dilapidated 77-year-old school, to the dismay of Ferndale residents who for years have lobbied the school board to repair the building. In its place, Smith envisions a regional learning center that would keep the name Ferndale but absorb kids from two other area schools within two years.

Grafwallner called Smith's concept of a regional center a "smart approach." It would ease the burden of local elementary schools to provide the new required services, he said.

Smith said the centers have worked for him, such as when he sought to reduce achievement gaps among students in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg system in North Carolina. He converted three aging schools to learning centers for 4-year-olds from poor families.

The curriculum emphasized reading preparedness, and the children ended up performing as well as their counterparts from wealthier families, he said.

"Our singular focus was to make sure they were successful readers when they entered kindergarten," Smith said. He said it makes more sense financially to provide support for early childhood development than remedial support in later years.