How SCOE, Stanislaus Community Foundation are teaming to make young kids ‘Ready!’
Mini construction workers, tiny first responders and junior engineers were running around with abandon last summer at the Head Start preschool at Modesto Junior College.
The preschoolers were unaware of the attention focused on them and their future careers by team members of StanReady!, a program designed to ensure that every Stanislaus County child is just that — ready, when it’s time to start kindergarten.
“I wish I had known about the preschool programs for my older son,” said Maria Romero, mother of 5-year-old David Arreola and Julian Arreola, who turns 3 in December.
Julian has been in the home visiting program with Early Head Start since last March, but David never went to preschool.
“Julian is very outgoing and the (preschool) program is helping him,” Romero said. “He already recognizes his numbers and some letters, and he’s only 2.”
Romero said David started kindergarten this year and has been struggling with making friends, and he’s just starting to learn his letters and numbers.
The experiences of Julian and David demonstrate why school readiness caught the attention of the Stanislaus Cradle-to-Career Partnership, an initiative designed to build a cohesive network of all sectors involved in the well-being of the county’s children and its residents.
The sectors include representatives from health, education, government, business, faith-based and nonprofit organizations, as well as individual community members.
The program’s goal is to build an infrastructure using the county’s vast offerings of services so children can avoid slipping through the cracks and be ready to join the workforce by the time they’re adults.
StanReady! is the first of five action teams of Cradle-to-Career along with StanReads!, StanMath!, StanFutures! and StanCareers! that helps guide young people through the stages of learning.
Stanislaus Cradle-to-Career Partnership is part of a nationwide, nonprofit group of 70 organizations within the StriveTogether Cradle-to-Career Network, which is working to improve outcomes for kids in each of their communities.
Stanislaus County third-graders behind on reading
StanReady! wasn’t the first team in Cradle-to-Career.
“StanReady! emerged out of StanReads!, which started in 2014,” said Amanda Hughes, program director of the Stanislaus Community Foundation, a nonprofit organization with the mission of connecting philanthropic resources with needs in the community.
Hughes said a report by The Annie E. Casey Foundation, a philanthropic organization that funds research and programs dedicated to helping children, showed that reading proficiency at the end of third grade was one of the strongest predictors of high school graduation and success for entering the workforce.
This motivated the community foundation to assess reading proficiency among Stanislaus County third-graders.
They worked closely with the Stanislaus County Office of Education (SCOE) and more than 40 other community organizations, including First 5 Stanislaus, Golden Valley Health Centers and Valley Children’s Hospital.
“SCOE serves as a backbone alongside the Community Foundation to bring structure and support to the Cradle-to-Career initiative,” said Megan Lowery, director of Cradle-to-Career at SCOE.
The group looked at students from five pilot schools in five districts in the county.
What they found was alarming — 70% of third-graders were not reading at grade level.
The group realized an intervention at third grade was too late, so the focus became school readiness, and StanReady! emerged.
“School readiness means children are excited and ready to engage in school academically and beyond that, socially and emotionally,” said Tony Jordan. “And the schools are enthusiastic and ready for the children and their families.”
Jordan is the executive director of Child and Family Services for SCOE, which includes overseeing Head Start programs.
Living in poverty increases the risk of a child not being ready for school, according to pediatric researchers. Less than half of low-income American kids, compared to 75% of their more affluent peers, are ready for kindergarten, says a report from The Brookings Institute.
Other factors include lower rates of preschool attendance, poor nutrition, parental issues and hearing fewer words from birth to 5.
That’s where StanReady! enters.
StanReady!
“This partnership is about not having silos,” said Mary Pedraza, SCOE project coordinator for StanReady!, in describing the program and the importance to connect its partners.
Pedraza said StanReady! works to identify, and ultimately remove, obstacles in all aspects of a child’s life from prenatal to kindergarten. Examples of hurdles include poor prenatal care, inadequate food, low access to health care and limited exposure to books.
“It’s about all of us coming together to make sure all of our children are on a solid foundation,” said Jordan.
“We asked, ‘How do we have more kids starting kindergarten ready to learn?’ ” said Hughes.
Initial expenditures included supporting programs to get more books into the hands of kids, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds. One example was enrolling kids from the pilot schools into Imagination Library, which was founded by country singer Dolly Parton.
The program mails books to the homes of disadvantaged children to try to foster a love of reading and improve literacy. Participation costs about $25 per child per year, but is funded by the Community Foundation and other philanthropic groups, including the Modesto Rotary Club. That makes it free for families.
They also invested in collecting baseline data at the start of StanReady! to understand the obstacles for school readiness and to help plan future interventions to remove those roadblocks.
Starting in 2017-18, about 2,000 kids in kindergarten in eight pilot schools in the county were assessed using the Kindergarten Student Entrance Profile. The KSEP is usually completed within the first month of starting kindergarten. It is a comprehensive assessment of a child’s abilities and includes:
- Teacher observation of the kids
- Evaluation of pre-academic skills, such as knowing colors and starting to read letters and write their name
- Social-emotional development, such as playing with peers, being able to pay attention and knowing when to ask for adult help.
About 70% of kindergartners were not ready, the same number of poor readers in third grade.
KSEP data from the pilot schools for this school year are currently being analyzed.
Hughes said StanReady! has increased the use of KSEP in more area schools, which will provide a broader look at kindergartners across the county.
Jordan of SCOE said their Head Start programs regularly perform developmental screening of attendees at different ages, including KSEP testing of 4-year-olds completing the program.
Nearly 90% of their graduates test as kindergarten ready. Head Start programs serve low-income and at-risk children and their families, and emphasize the importance of parents as their children’s first teachers.
“They don’t just teach the kids,” said Romero, mom of the preschoolers. “They teach the parents how to teach the kids.”
She said the preschool has made a world of difference for Julian being ready for school, compared to David.
Hughes said the educational success of children determine their futures, including growing up to be healthy, self-sufficient contributing members of the county’s workforce.
She said the county needs teachers, doctors, nurses and other professionals, and Cradle-to-Career wants to help kids to grow up and fill those needs.
“This isn’t an education initiative,” said Hughes, “It’s a workforce initiative.”
To become involved or to learn more about Stanislaus Cradle-to-Career, visit https://www.stancoe.org/division/administrative-services/cradle-career
This story was produced with financial support from The Stanislaus County Office of Education and the Stanislaus Community Foundation, along with the GroundTruth Project’s Report for America initiative. The Modesto Bee maintains full editorial control of this work.
