May 26, 2005

By Diane Chiddister

In a collaborative effort with the Greene County Educational Service Center and the Yellow Springs public schools, the Community Children’s Center will offer a new preschool program beginning July 1. The new program will be funded by a grant from the Ohio Department of Education and the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.

“It’s a pretty innovative program because of the linkages involved,” said Tony Armocida, the superintendent of the Yellow Springs schools. “From our end, we’re excited. It sounds kind of unique, a little cutting edge.”

The Early Learning Initiative (ELI) grant, which could provide as much as $260,000 over a two-year period, seeks “to provide high-quality preschool experiences to help children enter kindergarten ready for success and to also meet the child care needs of working families,” said Brenda McCarthy, the early childhood director at the Educational Service Center, who wrote the grant.

The new program will help the Children’s Center preschool program meet Ohio preschool educational standards, which went into effect two years ago, according to McCarthy. The new program also will align more closely with Mills Lawn School’s kindergarten classes, she said. McCarthy will oversee the new program, and the Educational Service Center will serve as the grant’s fiscal agent.

“The board is thrilled,” said Sean Creighton, the president of the Children’s Center board. “The board has been discussing preschool initiatives for a while and was interested in aligning with Mills Lawn. We saw this as a wonderful opportunity to get to that place.”

The grant makes possible a new preschool class, which will be taught by veteran educator Janice Kumbusky, and will also pay portions of salaries of the center’s three other preschool teachers, McCarthy said. Grant monies will also subsidize preschool children who qualify for TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) as well as purchase materials. In addition to teaching the new class, Kumbusky will spend one day a week mentoring the other teachers at the Children’s Center on how to incorporate Ohio preschool educational standards into their classrooms.

Children in the new program will also have the option of receiving a full day of preschool services through programs already in place at the Children’s Center, McCarthy said.

The new preschool program will continue the Children’s Center’s tradition of using a play-based curriculum, said the center’s interim director, Marlin Newell. Ohio’s Early Learning Content Standards, which were prompted by the federal government’s No Child Left Behind initiative, include language arts, math, social studies and science components, according to McCarthy.

Teachers will learn methods that incorporate those components into the center’s program, McCarthy said.

The language arts component includes encouraging children to recognize sounds and words and their name in print as well as an emphasis on pre-reading. The math component covers preschool algebra along with practice in patterning, graphing, sorting and categorizing. In the social sciences component, children will learn about communities, including how to share and take turns, and the science component will include earth and physical sciences. The children will receive about two hours and 45 minutes of academic instruction each day, McCarthy said.

“The challenge is how we take what we know about how children learn best and implement the educational standards,” she said.

Research has shown that preschoolers learn best through meaningful play, through music and the arts and through social interactions, she said. Classes will also implement more thematic learning.

Preschool children are not subjected to tests, but their progress will be evaluated through close observation, McCarthy said. Children’s Center teachers will be trained in observation techniques and in ways to document the children’s progress, she said.

The idea for a new educationally enriched preschool program was sparked last fall, when several parents requested that the public schools start a preschool program, said Armocida, who met with the parents and representatives of current preschools, including the Antioch School and the Children’s Center, to determine the need for a new program.

After several months of meetings, the group decided that a new program could hurt the current Children’s Center program, and the idea was shelved, Armocida said. However, he said, the meetings raised the possibility of the Children’s Center and the public schools working together to meet preschoolers’ needs.

“Where we ended in the winter was that if the Children’s Center worked to develop a program that linked to the kindergarten, we would be willing to work with them,” Armocida said.

Soon after, Armocida said, “Brenda stepped in and lent her expertise,” by alerting the various parties to the possibilities offered by the Early Learning Initiative grant and then writing the 74-page grant application. McCarthy has been instrumental in organizing other collaborative community efforts, including the Head Start program located at Friends Care Community.

The new preschool class will have room for 10 children in the morning and 10 in the afternoon, McCarthy said, and a significant number of those children must be from low-income families. The Children’s Center will receive the grant monies based on the children’s classroom attendance rather than at the beginning of the program, she said.

Applications are currently being accepted for enrollment into the enrichment preschool and extended preschool program, but space is limited. Interested persons should call the Children’s Center at 767-7236, or McCarthy at 767-1303, ext. 4311, for more information.