TKW Consulting

Preschool Partners
Upgrading day care is a smart way to get kids ready for school
June 27, 2006

One way to get more children involved in quality early childhood programs - the kind critical to resolving some persistent problems in our society and schools - would be to expand public preschool. Take that to its logical end - taxpayer supported preschool for every child - and it's so expensive and controversial that the idea is, in today's political
environment, a nonstarter.

Another way is to upgrade the quality of the child care children are already receiving. Most children of working parents are in some kind of care. Instead of replacing it with public preschool, why not make sure it is of high enough quality to get children off to a good start in school and in life?Some day care is wonderful - nurturing, stimulating, developmentally sensitive, everything you'd want. But some isn't, because Virginia's licensing standards don't require it to be. Virginia's approach focuses on things like room sizes and staffing ratios, but not on things that really count, like helping children learn language skills and appropriate behavior.

Enter Preschool Partners. This nonprofit organization, launched by a group of moms who want other children to have the same preschool advantage their own children did, is quietly, systematically going about upgrading the quality of child care. It's doing it in a way that makes sense, by pairing programs with folks who have experience, expertise and a desire to help. It started by identifying child care operations in the area: centers, church-sponsored programs and family day care homes. Then it recruited a stable of folks - teachers, other educators, successful preschool administrators - to be trainers, mentors and resources for them.

They start off by helping preschools evaluate themselves, using a set of standards drawn up by experts at the University of North Carolina. It asks things like: Are there books, and are children read to? Are the books accessible and appropriate? How is language development encouraged? The evaluation peers into every corner of a preschool, from discipline to staff development, from how staff interact with children to how space and time are used, from furnishing to fine motor activities. Programs and mentors work together to decide where to improve and how to do it. If materials are needed, Preschool Partners helps, spending an average of $800 per program, money that comes from a federal grant.

The results can be significant, for preschools and the children they serve. In one instance, the staff and mentor created a series of centers - for building, imaginative play, science, writing, water and sand, etc. These little areas, familiar to every reader of this page who has had a child in preschool, offer children a variety of stimulating activities, and encourage happy, busy days.

The mentor visits, observes, coaches and supports. Program staff work to upgrade quality. And together, they celebrate - that's important, too. Next month, Preschool Partners will sponsor a dinner for the staff of the programs it has been working with, the ones just getting started and the mentors, to rejoice in their accomplishments. Quality assistance, as the program is called, is only part of what Preschool Partners is up to. It launched a new preschool in an underserved community in Newport News, and it's hard at work on an information and referral service that will be a lifeline for parents trying to find child care.

And it is not the only organization providing training and mentoring for child care programs. In the Williamsburg area, that's part of the work of another busy partnership, the Kids First coalition. It doesn't necessarily take a huge, government program to meet a need. It takes resolve, imagination, perseverance - and the right kind of partners.

// posted by Tammy Wachter @ 4:24 PM