Grant will benefit child care centers

View Original at paducahsun.com

By Jason Morrow jmorrow@paducahsun.com

To promote partnerships between McCracken preschools and local child care centers, McCracken County Preschool was recently awarded a $150,000 grant.

According to Tina Hayes, director of elementary instruction for McCracken County Public Schools, the money won't be spent like a lot of institutions might use it.

"We really shied away from the idea of a one-year fix," Hayes said. "That money would have funded maybe two people, but then what do you have the next year?"

Instead, the money will be used to provide training for the county's child care providers.

McCracken Preschool, which has partnered with Easter Seals Child Development Center on the grant, will organize trainings, workshops and seminars for teachers and aides for about 10 other private child care providers -- all in an effort to get McCracken children ready for kindergarten.

"A lot of people have used their (grant) money to fund an extra teacher or an extra classroom or something like that," said Genevieve Postlethwait, a grant writer for McCracken County Schools. "We wanted to do something that would be sustainable past the grant or wasn't totally relying on the grant to keep going."

Money for the grant has to be spent within a year, so Hayes has been working quickly to plan upcoming sessions.

The first one is already in place for Aug. 14-15. Hayes said there has been a big interest in learning about discipline as well as lessons in writing.

Kristie Dover, co-director for Easter Seals, was part of an earlier training conducted by Hayes, which served as a test for future training sessions once the grant was in place.

The training involved learning tools called MathRacks, which is like an abacus, but focuses on whole numbers.

"These are tools teachers will be able to use for years to come," Dover said. "The grant will help teachers learn what is out there."

Hayes said the goal was to get area instructors on the same page to provide kindergarten readiness for children.

She said a child will often be taught a program at a day care that can be completely different than what he or she will see in preschool or even kindergarten.

"We are looking at the whole child from when they start day care to when they start kindergarten," Hayes said.

Dover explained that most training sessions are done online these days and are less effective than in-person training.

"In the past, you would go to a face-to-face training and get handouts and items to take back to your classroom," Dover said. "As teachers, we would say that it lit a fire and got you excited about what you were doing."

She said a lot of that is lost in online training, so the idea is to get back to in-person sessions. Also, she said it was important for teachers to be given the tools they learn about.

"It's great if a teacher gets to go to training and learn about these great tools, but if your center doesn't have the funding to purchase that tool, it doesn't do you any good." Dover said. "This grant allows you to purchase the tools, so we can go back and have our hands on the items and can teach the children how to use them."

Postlethwait said the training will benefit students for a long time.

"We'd like to get more funding next year and continue this, but even if that doesn't happen the value of this training isn't going to be lost. That was kind of our approach to it," she said.

About 54 instructors from the local area will be attending various training sessions throughout the year.

Dover said it is great to start teaching children at an early age.

"A lot of parents think that day care is just babysitting," she said. "This allows children in these day cares to get the same things the children in preschool are getting. When they go to kindergarten, all the children have been taught the same thing."