The Miami Valley School is planning to invest in its early childhood education program through a $1.5 million expansion in the next two years.

The Dayton area’s only independent, college-preparatory private school — which offers preK-12 education to about 500 students — identified the expansion as a priority in its three-year strategic plan the board of trustees recently adopted.

The plan calls for relocating 30 pre-kindergarten students from the school’s Julia D. Hobart Early Childhood Center at 4631 Far Hills Ave. in Kettering to its main campus in Washington Twp. The Miami Valley School’s Lower School, Middle School, Upper School and athletics complex are on that 22-acre campus at 5151 Denise Drive.

“We think that early childhood education is a growing market and an important market for education-minded families,” Headmaster Peter Benedict said. The project would require board approval before a $1.5 million fund-raising campaign would begin some time in the next 12 months, he said.

“We will be reaching out to folks in our community who we know have a passion around early childhood education and largely looking, certainly, at our own constituency,” he said.

Benedict said the plan calls for expanding the Lower School, which now contains kindergarten through fifth grade, to accommodate the 3-, 4- and 5-year-old pre-kindergarten students.

Benedict estimated up to two-thirds of the $1.5 million would be spent on new construction, with the remaining $500,000 on renovation. The plan calls for adding three classrooms and a shared workspace such as an art studio.

The Miami Valley School has offered early childhood education at the Far Hills location, known as the Rose campus, for a decade. Benedict said school leaders would have to evaluate whether to put that building up for sale or repurpose it for another use.

School officials see several benefits to moving the youngsters to the main campus.

“The early childhood program is a feeder to our school and it allows the families who use that program to get the full taste and full experience,” Benedict said.

It also would allow older and younger students to work together, which officials believe would enrich the educational experience, and would give the librarians, world language specialists, music and art teachers a chance to work more with pre-kindergarten students.