Four years ago this month, the most devastating Wildfire The largest volcanic eruption in Oregon’s history has occurred across the southern part of the state.
The fires have added to the chaos that has been caused by the raging COVID-19 pandemic, with children out of school and social interactions disrupted. They have destroyed thousands of homes in the rural areas that make up the Phoenix-Talent School District, forced hundreds of families to evacuate and shuttered many businesses.
The wildfires, like any natural disaster, had many ripple effects throughout the community, and one the district continues to grapple with is the impact on young children. In recent years, more children have been entering kindergarten without the basic skills and abilities that were once taken for granted.
“It’s hard to separate the fires from the pandemic,” said Tiffany Lambert, vice chancellor of the Phoenix Talent School District. “The fires have really magnified the learning losses and learning gaps that have come from the pandemic, making them more visible and prolonging them.”
During the pandemic, many early learning programs and preschools have already Scarce Resources Lambert said early childhood education centers in the area temporarily closed, then a fire damaged some of them, forcing further closures — two events that left many children without access to quality, in-person pre-kindergarten education.
Additionally, some of their families had lost their jobs and suffered financially, Lambert said, and many of their parents had mental health issues and were under a lot of stress at home.
All of these factors combine to explain the plight of the district’s recent new arrivals in kindergarten, she says. Many lack the social skills to interact with their peers, the ability to follow directions and stick to routines, and the attention span to sit through a story read to them in class, Lambert says. Few preschoolers had any early learning experience, she adds, and even concepts like which way to turn the pages of a book are foreign to many.
Phoenix Talent may be a more dramatic example in the wake of the 2020 wildfires, but it is by no means an exception. Across the country, elementary school teachers and leaders Report Children are entering kindergarten in worse conditions than their past classmates. Underdeveloped Social-emotional and fine motor skills. Some children are not yet able to use the toilet independently.
“This news is sobering,” said Kristen Huff, vice president of assessment and research at Curriculum Associates, the assessment company that recently published the report. the study In particular, the country’s youngest learners remain Struggling To recover from the disruptions to learning and development caused by the pandemic, “the effects of the pandemic have been lasting much longer than expected.”
The differences are hard to miss: More kids, for example, have a harder time being separated from their parents or guardians when they go to school, presumably because they’ve had little or no time away from them before.
“We’ve heard a lot of concerns from parents and teachers,” said Rachel Robertson, chief academic officer at Bright Horizons, which runs more than 600 early childhood care and education centers in the United States.
Many educators and researchers said in interviews that these developmental differences are not entirely the result of the pandemic. Low fees This is followed by the number of children enrolled in preschool education. screenIn very young children, even infants and toddlers, it is more likely to be a factor.
Robertson believes screens are a big part of what’s impeding the development of fine motor skills: Some kids have stories read to them on their phones instead of reading from paper books, and others swipe away on tablets instead of doing arts and crafts that give them a chance to practice holding a crayon or using scissors.
“We are experiencing test results that we did not anticipate,” Robertson noted.
The good news is that even if kids are “behind,” that can change easily, and sometimes quickly: Kids pick up skills quickly at an early age, especially if learning is fueled by curiosity and surprise, says Robertson.
Educators and child development experts say kids need certain skills and abilities to attend, participate, and thrive in kindergarten. But many kids, especially an increasing number over the past four years, don’t have access to the resources and experiences that will help them build those skills before they start elementary school. Seeing this alarming downward trend, many school districts are implementing unique solutions to help young children get ready for school. Here’s a closer look at two of them.
Oregon Jump Start Preschool
During the pandemic, Oregon Department of Education leaders understood that early learning programs were important for preparing children for the transition to kindergarten and that a “significant need” had been created because those programs were less accessible and available to families at the time, Mark Siegel, communications director for the state department, said in a written response to EdSurge.
“Leaders knew that after an extended period without opportunities for in-person learning, our youngest learners would need additional support to prepare them for the social, emotional and academic demands of a public school environment,” he added.
That emotion, Jump Start Kindergartenis a state-funded program that uses Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds from the federal pandemic-era American Rescue Plan Act to provide new students and their families with a “gateway” to kindergarten.
Jump Start programs vary based on the needs of each school and community in which they are implemented, but they all include several key elements, Siegel says. Every Jump Start program includes at least two weeks of half-day classroom experiences totaling more than 30 hours, featuring hands-on activities, establishing classroom routines and building relationships with other kids and educators. Additionally, each program partners with community-based organizations to provide experiences that encourage family engagement, like playground interactions, school scavenger hunts and meetings with school staff.
The Phoenix Talent School District has implemented its Jump Start Kindergarten program for the past three summers with impressive results, Lambert said. The district has expanded the program in several ways.
In its first year (summer 2022), the district’s program prioritized children with special needs who have limited access to early special education services. During those weeks, the children learned to follow routines, line up as a class and use the paper towel dispenser, Lambert recalled.
In the second and third years, the district expanded the program to include any child not attending kindergarten or another early learning program and extended the duration to five or six weeks. This summer, 34 children participated in the program. (Phoenix Talent estimated 140 kindergartners would participate this fall, but Lambert said 50 or 60 slots would have been ideal.)
Lambert said the kids who attended Jump Start Kindergarten “seem much better prepared” and more enthusiastic about coming to school every day. “We’ve seen a big difference in attendance, and that translates to academics. Students can’t learn if they’re not in school.”
Overall, attendance for the district’s kindergarten students in the 2023-24 school year was 59 percent, while attendance for students who attended Jump Start the previous summer was 78 percent. (It is too early to collect data for the 2024-25 school year.)
The Jump Start program has been a huge boon to Phoenix Talent, especially now that staff has figured out how to best operate it, but its future is unclear with ESSER funding expiring at the end of this month and replacement funding from the state uncertain.
“We’re very disappointed,” Lambert said, “because it gives kids and their parents peace of mind as they start school. … We think we’re going to need this for years to come.”
Baby Bags, Badges, and More
Without a state-mandated program, other districts had to fight a little harder.
Leaders in the Manheim Central School District in Manheim, Pennsylvania, recognized that the pandemic would also affect children who weren’t yet in school, and that they would need extra help.
“We knew we had to change the way we did things,” says Tracy Fasick, a recently retired director of curriculum and instruction for a small rural school district.
They devised a multifaceted strategy that involves families early on (as early as possible, in fact) and creates better communication and consistency with local early learning programs.
One such strategy is “baby bags”: When a baby is born in the district (Fasick says there are about 210 to 240 of these a year), the district delivers a bag containing information about local programs and early intervention services, a toy, learning materials, and a cup with a straw and a bib featuring the district mascot.
“Right away, you can tell this is a kid who will be attending our school in the future,” Fasick said of the bags. “It makes them feel welcome.”
In the district’s kindergarten, first and second grade classes, teachers use a “badging system” in which students are awarded badges for various skills and abilities they master, rather than a written grade. For example, in the early elementary grades, children can earn badges for achieving certain literacy and math goals.
Fasick wanted her district’s future students to familiarize themselves with the system, so she met with all of the area’s preschool leaders and helped them develop age- and developmentally-appropriate badges for kindergarteners, working backwards from the badges for preschoolers. Now, those programs also offer badges. Kids can earn badges for gross motor skills like being able to hop or skip, for zipping or buttoning their own coat or for sitting still and following directions.
Fasick said the current kindergarten program “knows very well what it is that they’re teaching in kindergarten. [the children] I want to know what happens in kindergarten.”
She added: “The kids love the badges, it’s something they can see. … It celebrates their learning and helps a lot.”
As a final push towards kindergarten, Manheim Central is offering families a “Countdown to Kindergarten” box upon kindergarten registration.
Amy Ketchum, a pediatric occupational therapist and professor of early childhood development at nearby Cedar Crest College, created the box to give families a crash course on everything their children need to know before they start kindergarten.
Ideally, children will work through all the activities in the box over the course of six months.The activities included in the box include a planner (detailing two activities to do each month), a pencil case with fine motor aids, a seed packet for planting seeds, a ruler for measuring the growth of those seeds and flowers, activities and scissors to develop cutting skills, note cards for practicing writing their name, and index cards and laces for practicing tying shoelaces.
Ketchum, who is assembling the boxes with her family in her garage, is clear that the boxes are not meant to replace more formal early childhood experiences, but rather to supplement them for those who don’t have access to them.
“Kids need access to quality early childhood education and a lot of kids don’t have that,” she said. “This is an attempt to give them some tools. [and] It involves some hands-on activities, making parents aware of what is expected and giving them the opportunity to “practice” those skills with their children.
Nearly all parents and guardians want what’s best for their children, but many don’t know where to start, Fasick said. This box offers guidance.
“Families are grateful for anything that can help their children,” Fasick said, “and this is an easy way to help them.”
