Indiana Gazette: Pre-k Expansions to Benefit At-Risk Children in County
By Sean Yoder 4/2/2016
BLAIRSVILLE — Great Expectations Child Care and Early Learning Center in Blairsville is one of the latest education centers to expand its number of subsidized pre-kindergarten slots.
On March 1, Great Expectations learned it would gain another 17 Pre-K Counts-funded slots, on top of the existing 17, according to Madeline Savage, director.
Several local elected officials and law enforcement gathered Friday to celebrate the expansion and talk about the benefits of early childhood education, especially for at-risk children from low-income families.
Savage told them that about 60 to 70 percent of the children do receive subsidies and qualify for the reduced meal program, which shows that many come from low-income families, she said. The grant expansion has allowed more of the 110 children at the center to receive subsidized pre-K and add some new children or those whose parents may have pulled them out for financial reasons.
Great Expectations expanded a year and a half ago and has been in Blairsville since 2009.
Advocates say that students who attend pre-K need fewer special needs through school and aren’t as likely to be held back, are healthier and aren’t years behind their peers when kindergarten starts.
Sarah Byrnes-House, representing the Pittsburgh Association for the Education of Young Children, said 58 percent of children below the poverty line in Indiana County don’t have access to high-quality pre-K. The percentage is the same in Allegheny County. In Washington County it’s 69 percent and it’s 71 percent in Westmoreland County. She said the U.S. lags behind other countries and ranks 24th out of 29 in spending for early learning.
The latest state budget called for $25 million more funding to Pre-K Counts and $5 million more for the Head Start Supplemental Assistance Program. Early childhood education centers and school districts across the state had been waiting for months on word about their Pre-K Counts applications due to the budget stalemate in Harrisburg.
Nationally, state funding increased by $672 million to a total of $6.3 billion for 2014-15.
In Indiana County:
• ARIN IU 28 received $70,500 in Pre-K Counts grant money for 2015-16. That equates to 20 full slots per day.
• The Indiana County Child Development Center was awarded $7,050, or two slots.
• Indiana County Head Start received $51,649 in Head Start funding, or 13 slots.
State Rep. Dave Reed said the discussion among lawmakers has changed a lot in the past decade.
“Folks in Harrisburg are much more open to investing in early childhood learning programs,” he said “There are still a few folks out there that look at it as a glorified day care program and I don’t think they quite understand it. And it’s a generational issue, absolutely.”
“You’ve got kids showing up to kindergarten ready to read, doing addition, subtraction, looking at multiplication and competing against kids who don’t know the difference between a circle and a square. That child is already left behind.”
Reed said pre-kindergarten could also help cut down on expenses for remediation later in a student’s career.
“This truly is the opportunity to balance the scale for those children who are living in atmospheres that are not ideal. They didn’t choose to be born into those atmospheres. They are products of a situation that is beyond their control.”
Also in attendance were Sheriff Bob Fyock, District Attorney Patrick Dougherty and Blairsville Police Chief Michael Allman.
Bruce Clash from Fight Crime: Invest in Kids has been helping to organize support for pre-kindergarten across the state from a law enforcement standpoint. The organization’s contention is that at-risk children who don’t attend a pre-kindergarten program can be more likely to be arrested for violent crimes and end up in prison later in life.
Half of inmates in Pennsylvania don’t have a high school diploma, said Dougherty. He said that education is cheaper than incarceration and that it was a no-brainer to invest in the front end to keep people out of the corrections system.
Fyock said in his years in law enforcement he’s seen generations of families follow the same patterns of crime. He said it was important to reach children when they’re young and be proactive.
“It’s going to be very valuable on down the road,” Fyock said. “If we can prevent them from getting into crime to start with it’s going to be very good.”
Mission: Readiness is an organization comprised of former service members who hope to prepare children for success in order to qualify for military service, or keep from being disqualified. Steve Doster, Pennsylvania director, said about 72 percent of 17- to 24-year-olds are not eligible for service. It can be due to inadequate education, lack of skills to pass the entrance exams or lack of physicality. Drug offenses also preclude people from serving.
Rod Ruddock, a retired U.S. Army Reserve major general and current county commissioner, said that young adults who are fit for military service are also more likely to be employable in the general workforce.
Read the full article here.
Indiana Gazette: Pre-k Expansions to Benefit At-risk Children in County
4/2/16 By Sean Yoder
BLAIRSVILLE — Great Expectations Child Care and Early Learning Center in Blairsville is one of the latest education centers to expand its number of subsidized pre-kindergarten slots.
On March 1, Great Expectations learned it would gain another 17 Pre-K Counts-funded slots, on top of the existing 17, according to Madeline Savage, director.
Several local elected officials and law enforcement gathered Friday to celebrate the expansion and talk about the benefits of early childhood education, especially for at-risk children from low-income families.
Savage told them that about 60 to 70 percent of the children do receive subsidies and qualify for the reduced meal program, which shows that many come from low-income families, she said. The grant expansion has allowed more of the 110 children at the center to receive subsidized pre-K and add some new children or those whose parents may have pulled them out for financial reasons.
Great Expectations expanded a year and a half ago and has been in Blairsville since 2009.
Advocates say that students who attend pre-K need fewer special needs through school and aren’t as likely to be held back, are healthier and aren’t years behind their peers when kindergarten starts.
Sarah Byrnes-House, representing the Pittsburgh Association for the Education of Young Children, said 58 percent of children below the poverty line in Indiana County don’t have access to high-quality pre-K. The percentage is the same in Allegheny County. In Washington County it’s 69 percent and it’s 71 percent in Westmoreland County. She said the U.S. lags behind other countries and ranks 24th out of 29 in spending for early learning.
The latest state budget called for $25 million more funding to Pre-K Counts and $5 million more for the Head Start Supplemental Assistance Program. Early childhood education centers and school districts across the state had been waiting for months on word about their Pre-K Counts applications due to the budget stalemate in Harrisburg.
Nationally, state funding increased by $672 million to a total of $6.3 billion for 2014-15.
In Indiana County:
• ARIN IU 28 received $70,500 in Pre-K Counts grant money for 2015-16. That equates to 20 full slots per day.
• The Indiana County Child Development Center was awarded $7,050, or two slots.
• Indiana County Head Start received $51,649 in Head Start funding, or 13 slots.
State Rep. Dave Reed said the discussion among lawmakers has changed a lot in the past decade.
“Folks in Harrisburg are much more open to investing in early childhood learning programs,” he said “There are still a few folks out there that look at it as a glorified day care program and I don’t think they quite understand it. And it’s a generational issue, absolutely.”
“You’ve got kids showing up to kindergarten ready to read, doing addition, subtraction, looking at multiplication and competing against kids who don’t know the difference between a circle and a square. That child is already left behind.”
Reed said pre-kindergarten could also help cut down on expenses for remediation later in a student’s career.
“This truly is the opportunity to balance the scale for those children who are living in atmospheres that are not ideal. They didn’t choose to be born into those atmospheres. They are products of a situation that is beyond their control.”
Also in attendance were Sheriff Bob Fyock, District Attorney Patrick Dougherty and Blairsville Police Chief Michael Allman.
Bruce Clash from Fight Crime: Invest in Kids has been helping to organize support for pre-kindergarten across the state from a law enforcement standpoint. The organization’s contention is that at-risk children who don’t attend a pre-kindergarten program can be more likely to be arrested for violent crimes and end up in prison later in life.
Half of inmates in Pennsylvania don’t have a high school diploma, said Dougherty. He said that education is cheaper than incarceration and that it was a no-brainer to invest in the front end to keep people out of the corrections system.
Fyock said in his years in law enforcement he’s seen generations of families follow the same patterns of crime. He said it was important to reach children when they’re young and be proactive.
“It’s going to be very valuable on down the road,” Fyock said. “If we can prevent them from getting into crime to start with it’s going to be very good.”
Read the full article here.
Scranton Times: Ceremony held for new Mid Valley Head Start classroom
March 30, 2016
THROOP — State, county and local officials stressed the importance of pre-kindergarten education and celebrated the opening of a second pre-k classroom in the Mid Valley Elementary Center during a roundtable Tuesday.
“Only 50 percent of 3- and 4-year-olds in Lackawanna County have access to publicly funded high-quality pre-k,” said Ann Lynady, Head Start project director.
The roundtable at the Mid Valley Elementary Center, spearheaded by Bruce Clash, state director of the Harrisburg-based Fight Crime: Invest in Kids Pennsylvania, celebrated another 17 students now enrolled in a second pre-k classroom at Mid Valley. Roundtable participants included Ms. Lynady; Sam Ceccacci, executive director of the Scranton-Lackawanna Human Development Agency; Lackawanna County District Attorney Shane Scanlon; Gary Drapek, president of United Way of Lackawanna and Wayne Counties; state Sen. John Blake, D-22, Archbald; state Rep. Frank Farina, D-112, Jessup; and Mid Valley District representatives. They discussed facts and figures on how the new early education classrooms will benefit local students. Mr. Clash’s organization campaigns for “Pre-K for PA” to help reduce crime rates.
When Governor Tom Wolf released a partial state budget in December, $25 million went to pre-k Counts programs and $5 million to Head Start programs across the state. From that funding, the Scranton-Lackawanna Human Development Agency received $356,280 to educate 60 children under the state Department of Education-funded Head Start Supplementary Assistance Program, which targets low-income families. The agency also received $168,075 for 63 children — in both full- and part-day programs — under the department’s pre-k Counts program. Families earning up to 300 percent of the poverty guidelines are eligible for Pre-K Counts.
Besides Mid Valley, new pre-k classrooms also are open in North Pocono, Carbondale Area and Wallenpaupack Area school districts.
“This area is traditionally saturated with income eligible Head Start children. We always have a lengthy wait list,” said Ms. Lynady, who worked with Mid Valley School Board Director Donna Dixon to move the classrooms into the school.
“It’s a nicer marriage when the children are able to transition right into the school district,” Ms. Lynady said.
Read the full article here.
NBC 10: PA Budget Passed After 9-Month Deadlock
March 23, 2016
Wednesday afternoon, Governor Wolf finally passed a budget for Pennsylvania, even though he says the math doesn’t add up. NBC10’s Lauren Mayk reports.
Reading Eagle: Promoting the Value of Pre-kindergarten Programs in Chester County
By Holly Herman 3/19/16
NORTH COVENTRY TOWNSHIP – Pointing to colorful fish swimming in a bowl, smiling 5-year-old Gabe Feltman led an entourage of public officials on a tour of his pre-Kindergarten class in North Coventry Township Friday.
“Look at the fish,” Feltman said, to the group visiting the Warwick Cedarville Center to celebrate an increase of $30 million in state funding for pre-K in the partially adopted 2015-16 budget.
“I can tell you kids have a busy day,” state Sen. John C. Rafferty Jr. noted as Gabe showed him the toys and books in the center, which is part of the Owen J. Roberts School District.
Rafferty, a Montgomery County Republican who also serves portions of Berks and Chester counties, then took a seat to read a book to 10 students before they each cut a blue ribbon in the ceremony.
Before the ceremony, Steve Doser, deputy director of Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, a nonpartisan crime prevention organization, ran a roundtable discussion on why more funding for pre-K is necessary.
“We are hopeful that our state policymakers will come together in a bipartisan fashion to find resources to expand access to pre-K in the 2016-17 budget,” Doser said.
“We are all focused on increasing funding for pre-K,” Rafferty responded, noting that the issue is bipartisan.
The 2015-16 partially enacted state budget already includes $127 million for pre-K.
As a result, Chester County received an additional $707,225 to provide spaces for 205 more children.
The allocation includes $170,000 to add 20 spots in pre-K programs in Warwick Child Care programs in North Coventry and East Coventry townships.
Berks County received an additional $743,775 to add 211 children, and Montgomery County received $564,000 for an additional 160 children.
Statewide, more than 120,000 eligible pre-schoolers are not receiving public funding.
Chester County District Attorney Tom Hogan urged lawmakers to increase state aid for pre-school to reduce crime.
Hogan said that parental involvement is the key to doing well in life, noting that some children do not have parents to guide them.
Nevertheless, he said, children who go to pre-school are less likely to commit crimes.
“A review of Pennsylvania’s inmate population reveals that more than 50 percent of the inmates have not graduated from high school,” Hogan said.
The state offers two pre-K programs for low-income families.
One program, Pre-K Counts, provides funding to families under 300 percent of the poverty level, which is an annual income of $75,000.
The other program, Head Start Supplemental, provides pre-K to children in families under 120 precent of the federal poverty level, which would be an annual income of $30,000.
The federal poverty level for a family of four, is $24,300.
Read the full article here.
