WBRE: Monroe County Daycare and Preschool Honored
August 23, 2019 by Jayne Ann Bugda
POCONO PINES, MONROE COUNTY (WBRE/WYOU-TV) It’s back to school time and one pre-school in our area is being recognized for its success.
Wee Wons Daycare and Preschool In Pocono Pines is celebrating its 31st anniversary. State Senator Mario Scavello and State Representative Jack Rader presented the school with a certificate this afternoon.
The early learning center can provide care for 125 students and has the highest rating by a state grading system.
Thanks to Vigon International A Pre-K Scholarship was also awarded by the Pocono Mountains United Way for $10,000. The funds will help low-income students attend the school. Over the years the fragrance company has donated about $80, 000 to various early education programs.
“We recruit from the community. Our team shops in the community go to church in the community so as the leader of this team I feel an obligation to be able to give back.” Said Stephen Somers, President Vigon International
“Our kids come first. It’s all about the kids, they’re our future so we want this for them so we can give them so our future is what it should be. We give them what we can to help them get to that point” said Cheryl Traylor, Director Wee Wons
After the presentation, Senator Scavello put on his “thinking cap” and read to the students.
Watch the video coverage here.
Pennsylvania Capital Star: Pennsylvania’s kindergarten teachers ask state lawmakers for more pre-K funding
May 29, 2019 by Elizabeth Hardison
The fight to secure more funding for high-quality early education in Pennsylvania has a new ally: the state’s kindergarten teachers.
A survey by the Pennsylvania State Education Association found nearly unanimous support for publicly funded pre-kindergarten education among the union’s members who teach children that age.
The results were released Tuesday by Pre-K for PA, a coalition of educators and education advocates that seeks to expand access to early education programs for Pennsylvania’s preschool-age children.
Members of the campaign appeared at Hamilton Elementary School in Carlisle, Cumberland County on Tuesday to tout the findings of the survey and call for additional funding for early education programs.
Ninety-six percent of the teachers surveyed by PSEA agree that students who attend pre-K are more prepared for kindergarten, they said. In addition, 98 percent said that high-quality, publicly funded pre-K is an important tool for preparing at-risk children for kindergarten.
A report that detailed the results did not disclose the survey’s methods or sample size.
According to a state Department of Education report, more than 115,000 children living in deep poverty did not have access to publicly funded pre-k programs in the 2016-17 school year.
Teachers say that children who arrive in kindergarten without pre-K experience have lower literacy and emotional readiness than their peers who did attend pre-K.
Read the full article here.
Carlisle Sentinel: Advocates make case for pre-K importance in Carlisle
May 28, 2019
Education advocates were at Hamilton Elementary School in Carlisle Tuesday morning to push for more access to high-quality, publicly funded pre-kindergarten programs.
The Pre-K for PA Campaign released a report, “Ready for Success: Kindergarten Teachers Support Investments in High-Quality Pre-K,” which was based on findings of a survey conducted by the Pennsylvania State Education Association.
Association treasurer Jeff Ney said the results of the report show that 96 percent of elementary school teachers agree that students who attend high-quality pre-K programs are “ready for success” in kindergarten, and that 98 percent agree that such programs are an important tool to help prepare at-risk children.
“Phrasing quality pre-K as ‘an important tool’ was intentional in this survey,” Ney said. “Kindergarten teachers know and understand that a quality pre-K experience provides each child entering kindergarten with a growth mindset and a readiness to succeed. Their personal experiences mirror what researchers have uncovered: that children who attend high-quality pre-K have a solid foundation for learning, which promotes increased student growth and achievement.”
The report also included responses from kindergarten teachers who were surveyed. They said the top three skills learned in early learning programs that were the most important for incoming students were physical well-being and motor development, emotional development and social development.
“Students who attend high-quality pre-K programs come into kindergarten ready to succeed,” said Miranda Clash, a kindergarten teacher at Hamilton. “They have already practiced essential learning behaviors, know how to regulate their emotions, interact appropriately with peers, and have a solid foundation of language and background knowledge onto which they can add new learning. For students who have had a high-quality pre-K experience, I don’t have to spend as much time teaching these prerequisites to academic learning.”
Read the full article here.
Public News Service: Survey Shows Broad Teacher Support for Pre-K
May 28, 2019 by Andrea Sears
More than 90% of Pennsylvania kindergarten teachers agree that high quality pre-k prepares children for school success, according to a new report.
The Pre-K for PA campaign and the Pennsylvania State Education Association surveyed kindergarten teachers about the value that access to publicly funded, high quality pre-k has in promoting school readiness.
Kari King is president and CEO of Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children, one of the founding organizations of Pre-K for PA. She says 96% of teachers surveyed agree that high quality pre-k is an important tool for helping children develop the physical, emotional and social skills that are needed to succeed in the classroom.
“And 98% said that they see investing in high quality pre-k makes sense for the return on investment that you’re seeing throughout the child’s life,” King states.
Since 2014 the state has invested $115 million to give 12,000 additional at-risk children access to pre-k, but more than half of eligible children are still left out.
With the state budget for the coming fiscal year due at the end of June, King is hoping legislators will agree to invest an additional $40 million in the state’s Pre-k Counts program, and $10 million in the Head Start Supplemental Assistance Program.
“With that we’ll be able to provide access to about 5,500 additional three and four-year-olds who are eligible and continue to chip away at about 56 percent of eligible preschoolers who currently don’t have access,” King states.
King points out that Pennsylvania still ranks 18th out of the 30 states that do invest in high quality pre-k.
King says it’s an investment that pays. Research shows that a child who attended a high quality pre-k program sees benefits that can last a lifetime.
“That child is less likely to need remediation, and even into adulthood where you see that they’re more likely to have successful outcomes in terms of not entering the criminal justice system and gaining employment,” she states
King notes that every dollar invested in high-quality pre-k returns $4 in savings and benefits to the Commonwealth from reduced crime, higher earnings and more.
Read the article here.
York Daily Record: 71% of young people are ineligible for the military and for most careers, too
By Kim Strong May 14, 2019
Retired Rear Admiral Thomas Wilson worries about how many young people are ineligible for the military – because the numbers are staggering.
According to 2017 Pentagon data, 71 percent of young people are ineligible to join the military. The reasons: obesity, no high school diploma, or a criminal record.
“This is a very real risk to our national security,” said Steve Doster, Pennsylvania State director of Military Readiness for Council for a Strong America.
The problem isn’t just a military one, though. It’s an issue for businesses as well because the vast majority of that age group isn’t eligible for many jobs either, said Wilson, a former Naval officer, now in Biglerville.
That’s why Wilson raised the issue at a gathering of York County business and community leaders recently. The 29 percent of 17- to 24-year-olds who are qualified become prime targets for all recruiting: military, college and jobs.
Wilson calls it “a war for the qualified.”
A solution: early childhood education
Brian Grimm has been fighting to improve those numbers for many years as executive director of the York Day Nursery.
“He was preaching to the choir with me,” said Grimm, who was in the audience when Wilson spoke at a recent York County Economic Alliance breakfast. “It’s like you want to stand up and say: Is everybody listening?”
Early childhood education is Wilson’s focus. He volunteers with Doster’s organization, Council for a Strong America, joining hundreds of other retired military who serve in the organization from across the country, along with law enforcement leaders, ministers, and even athletes.
They’re promoting a common message about the need to prepare young people early in their lives to be productive members of society later.
Grimm and the nursery have been advocating for early childhood education for decades. In fact, York Day Nursery was a test site more than 10 years ago for Pre-K Counts, an education program for toddlers who will enter kindergarten the following year.
Wilson, a Biglerville resident, pushed for Pre-K Counts in his own school district of Upper Adams County, where he is the school board president. When Upper Adams opened that program, they immediately had a waiting list, Wilson said.
“Those first five years of life are where 90 percent of brain development occurs,” Doster said.
Pre-K Counts isn’t a day care program; it’s a curriculum-centered program that prepares toddlers for kindergarten.
All of the children in York Day Nursery are in curriculum-based classrooms, even the infants, Wilson said. In fact, the school has been invited to be involved in a state-funded program for infants that starts preparing those babies for the classroom as well.
“They know if they fund the infant program, that can get (the children) to the Pre-K Counts program, which will get them ready for school, which will prepare them for life,” Grimm said.
Seeing success in more than just the military
The life part – the successful outcome for young people – is what Wilson, Doster and Grimm want to see happen. Yes, Wilson wants more young people to be eligible for the military, but more importantly, young people need to be prepared to lead businesses and government as well.
According to one report, 52 percent of employers in Pennsylvania find it challenging to hire people with adequate skills, training or education. That comes from a Rand Company-sponsored report, “The economic impact of achievement gaps in Pennsylvania’s public schools.” The report shows wide gaps in student achievement because of race and socio-economic factors.
Investing in early childhood education isn’t enough, Doster said.
“The school (district) could lack opportunities and resources,” he said. Pennsylvania has wide spending gaps between school districts. The City of Reading spends about $7,000 per child each year on education while the Upper Merion School District spends about $26,500 per student, Doster said.
Read the full article here.
Citizens Voice: Officials: Pre-K programs key to reducing adult crime
April 19, 2019 by Eric Mark
With their backs against a tall prison wall topped with barbed wire, lawmakers and law enforcement officials on Thursday made the case for pre-Kindergarten education as a key to keeping people out of jail as adults.
The setting was State Correctional Institution-Dallas. The subject was a report just released by the anti-crime group Fight Crime: Invest in Kids. The timing concerned Gov. Tom Wolf’s proposed 2019-20 state budget, which includes a $50 million increase in funding for pre-K programs.
That would be a wise investment, since it could save taxpayers money in the long run by reducing the number of people in the criminal justice system, said Bruce Clash, state director of Fight Crime: Invest in Kids.
It is important to arrest and lock up criminals — but that is just part of the story, Clash said.
“The research is clear that we can be doing so much more,” he said.
The report shows that 62% of 3- and 4-year-old children in Luzerne County do not have access to pre-K education, according to Clash.
That needs to change, since pre-school education can help at-risk children who face many challenges in life, said Luzerne County District Attorney Stefanie Salavantis.
“We can help start them on the right path from the beginning,” she said, noting that children who do not participate in school prior to kindergarten are behind on skills and impulse control from the start.
Hanover Twp. police Chief Albert Walker said pre-K education serves as the start of efforts to “break the generational cycle of crime.”
“We can’t arrest, prosecute and incarcerate our way” out of that cycle, Walker said.
State Corrections Secretary John Wetzel said pre-school education helps put children on the path to stay in school and reach their potential. About 40% of prison inmates did not finish high school, Wetzel said.
Wetzel called on state lawmakers to support the funding increase for pre-school education in the state budget, due by June 30.
“We are asking elected officials to have courage to invest in the next generation,” he said.
Read the full article here.
