For the first time, more than 150 preschoolers and their families are one step closer to getting the best start, courtesy of Rutland County Head Start.
The Rutland-based early childhood education and enrichment program, servicing 154 children between the ages of 3 and 5 from income-eligible families, is a "leader in a national effort" to make local youngsters better prepared for school, and life, according to a federal agency that sets the standards for preschool education.
The National Association for the Education of Young Children recently granted managers of the Head Start program their first national accreditation for services offered in Rutland and Castleton, raising the bar on educational standards.
The NAEYC is the nation's leading organization of early childhood professionals, according to information provided by Head Start.
For the program and the students it serves, the accreditation means more than just words on paper. The program's identification as a high-quality preschool and the extra funding received as a result has the potential to fuel the program into the future, according to Richard Courcelle, program director for Head Start, one of Rutland Mental Health Services' community programs.
For Courcelle, the acknowledgement is proof that Head Start's mission is working.
"What we really try to promote is helping families secure the services they need early on so they can become independent providers for their children and become engaged as parents," said Courcelle, a member of the Rutland Board of School Commissioners.
"The pre-kindergarten part is important but the social and emotional part of the child has more impact in that child's success," he said.
"There's so much at stake here."
The program — run out of 12 preschool classrooms in Rutland, Castleton, Brandon, Pawlet and Danby — in conjunction with local school districts, received accreditation for work at two of those sites after voluntarily applying for it.
The accreditation process began earlier this year when Head Start filled out extensive paperwork and completed a self-study. In addition, an assessor from the NAEYC visited the two centers.
Through it all, more than 300 different federal early childhood criteria had to be met before the accreditation was granted in late August, said Melissa Riegel-Garrett, Vermont's NAEYC representative.
For the next five years, Courcelle and other program managers are required to file annual reports and continue to meet program standards while working to advance "areas for ongoing improvement." According to NAEYC's evaluation, science and social studies curriculum development and communication with families involved in the child assessment process needs to be improved.
However, Head Start met 100 percent of all criteria in the area of relationships among children and the adults who work with them, assessment of child progress, promoting the nutrition and health of children, community relationships, and leadership and management, according to NAEYC's accreditation decision report.
If accreditation is maintained, the program will be eligible for thousands of dollars in funding from a federal block grant for child care and an additional 20 percent increase in the rate for child-care subsidy, according to Riegel-Garrett.
Although enrollment in the county program is capped by the federal government, Courcelle said Head Start does more than academic enrichment — contracts with seven school districts allow the program to spread information on available early education programs, services for the developmentally disabled and mental health and other social services.