So last quarter my research paper was "The City of Neighborhood Schools - Where Will Preschool Go?"
My questions were, "How Did it Begin?", "What Happened?", and "What Now?"
I went through the history of how public school began here in Chicago, through the history that not only change the world, but our communities and in turn our neighborhood schools. I closed the paper asking what we are to do now. Chicago has neighborhood schools closing every year with the No Child Left Behind act. On top of this housing projects have been closing as well. This shifts thousands of families, low income families into different neighborhoods, sometimes rivaling areas.
This is where this becomes bigger then me. My head explodes into thousands of directions. I wonder if it is because it is too close to home.
In these neighborhood schools there are preschool programs Head Start and State Preschool for All (previously known as State Prekindergarten Program). These programs served the community as well as the children. They not only provided education, but job opportunities, public services, professional services, and community comradery.
This is where I wanted to start my advocacy plan. But there is also another point I seem to loose focus on. There are even private preschools, many of them also suffer. They way they differ from neighborhood schools is they are a preschool during school hours and a daycare/after school facility after school hours. The school day portion is funded by Head Start or State Preschool for All. These parents work and pay for the daycare/after school facilities on a sliding scale.
Since I am writing on an advocacy for neighborhood schools in particular, because,I am thinking of them as a whole, and not just for preschool purposes. I can enter the private school in a section that talks about options and why these do not work in the long run.
So this is what I am thinking now....literally while writing this.
Introducing my issues with neighborhood school as a bigger issue, how they are in low attendance, being shut down, etc. Then focusing on how the neighborhood school preschools, and how they are affected in troubling schools, well off schools, private schools, and even daycare facilities. Then introducing what has been done about it thus far. The budget cuts, the threats, the protesting.
And then my plan.......
Eva,
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting case you have arrived at. I see the same thing. I just see more and more funding being taken away from the preschool area. It is not mandatory to be in Preschool in my city, and they do have some public programs in Cape May and other areas of this county. They talked about making preschool mandatory and having preschool expansion which would give parents an opportunity to give the children all day care and schooling that would be in a private setting, but they would then be publicly funded. This project never reached this area. It is a shame that preschool is not funded for every child. Children really need the head start for learning. Some are pretty much left behind.
In my research I am facing the same dilemma that many schools are taking arts learning out of the daily curriculum. They have no real understanding the arts are very crucial in helping children’s cognitive thinking and reasoning skills. I was a preschool music teacher who was working in a private chain learning center. I saw so much potential for these children when they learned rhythm and notes. There was also art, and a gymnastics program there. The children seemed to want to learn all the subjects taught and themes that were done at the center. They all seemed to be very cooperative and creative in all things they did there. I was involved in many aspects of substituting for other teachers, and they were so interested in taking on projects, and doing creative thinking in discussions as they taught me quite a bit too.
Now I am in an area that is so low in income there is hardly any money to keep them open. If they had better programs and programs that were state funded for all day care and learning, maybe Parents would be able to work. If they were under the same pressures to have better educators and education efforts, then children may be able to achieve these higher standards in grade school and up. I just saw another learning center close Apple Tree Learning Center in Green Creek, NJ, and it wasn’t in my local town it was close by and some of the parents used this center when they worked in Rio Grande and nearby this school. This school was a very reputable school called Learning Tree. They had closed their one center and took the 8 children to their other school. This caused the problem of commuting a little further for these parents who took buses to the school. Some ended up changing to another center closer to green creek and Rio Grande.
This is a concern that some of our privately run learning centers are just not making ends meet. I am glad that this particular director took actions to save her, but mostly she saved the children. Cause if she cannot make enough money to run the center then how she can bring quality care and education to the children. This is a concern for this area; I hear and see many in this county that are not able to meet the right care and educational needs for the children. They skimp on everything. That is not fair to the children. You bring up a good point. Children need to have quality education even in the preschool level. If we have state funding for any educational level, we should have state funding for al educatinal levels. Children should be able to have a good start to their education. And parents should not have to worry about education and their child's care.
Darlene Tschopp
destinationent@bloggerspot.com
I know it is so frustrating to see and experience! Being a parent, trying to be a teaching, growing up in the arts, it is so hard to watch the schools, let alone the preschools suffer. After reading our posts again, I am more at ease with what my focus will be. I really wanted to focus more on neighborhood schools, but I was struggling with keeping it connected with preschools. This was especially hard with private sectors, which in my opinion are huge benefits to communities, teachers and families. I didn't want to compete the two. My larger focus is neighborhood schools, but to have a successful advocacy plan I need to strip the plan to the bare minumim, the very first steps, and I believe that is focusing of preschool as a whole, and why it is so important. I may need these private secotrs to actually prove that!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for your imput, it is greatly appreciated.
Eve,
ReplyDeleteIt is always so frustrating when we know what we want to do to help, but sometimes feel helpless because we don't know where to begin. If you start to work with the parents in the neighborhood and begin a survey or questionnaire about how important it is for the neighborhood to have a quality preschool for low income parents and how funding is supposedly not available and parents can make a difference if they also advocate for quality education. It has to be a mission for everyone. You are passionate and want to see changes, but it will take some time. Hang in there!
Yvette