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|  | News Items Posted On: March 31, 2006
Showing stories 1 - 4 of 4.
UT - Program Helps Kids and Parents Read
Submitted by emohan. Posted on Friday, March 31 @ 16:31:12 EST by emohan
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A Utah early literacy program is helping not only kids, but also their parents. The Motheread/Fatheread program helps at-risk families by building parenting and critical thinking skills while increasing reading levels.
Many studies show reading with your young child is one of the most important factors preparing them for school. But for immigrant and at-risk families, that can be a challenge.
Liliana Segura, Mother: "When I came here, I didn't speak English."
Rocio Velazquez, Mother: "We don't have too much reading in other, in our countries."
But a Utah literacy program aims to change that. The Motheread/Fatheread program helps prepare kids for school at the same time it helps improve a parent's literacy.
Pippa Keene, Motheread/Fatheread Program Coordinator: "The goal is to have the parent read to their child in whatever is their native tongue."
At 71 sites across the state, parents first get together for book discussion classes.
Kathy Furse, Granite Even Start East Coordinator: "They quickly get closer to each other, it's quite an emotional curriculum. They share a lot of personal things."
Full text available at ksl.com
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NH - City child care center leads standards program
Submitted by emohan. Posted on Friday, March 31 @ 16:24:51 EST by emohan
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Little Blessings Preschool and Day Care, at 1035 Lafayette Road, is the first in New Hampshire to be recognized officially for providing a higher level of child care.
The new state accreditation is called Licensed Plus, and to qualify, a center must first have its state license, and then must meet a set of 11 minimum standards and five of 11 optional standards.
The minimum standards include performing staff reviews, providing employee handbooks, maintaining parental communication and special needs accommodations, and more. Optional standards include having a written curriculum, parent-teacher conferences, and more.
"It’s about assuring parents that their kids are doing fine," Pat Woollett, director of Little Blessings, said. "We’re always striving to be better."
Woollett said there is a wide range of child care in the state, and Licensed Plus shows a center’s dedication to a higher quality of child care.
That is why the Department of Health and Human Services put the plan into place, according to Greg Moore, director of Public Relations at DHHS, many child care providers felt that the standards for national accreditation were too difficult.
New Hampshire took that into consideration and created a median point - Licensed Plus, a step between a basic state license and national accreditation.
"It is an opportunity for a facility itself to be recognized as a higher quality facility," Moore said. "This is a wonderful opportunity for the state to promote quality."
Facilities that receive Licensed Plus recognition will garner a 5 percent increase in scholarship funding to provide even better child care, with an eye toward national accreditation.
Full text available at the Portsmouth Herald
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CA - Child care costly, scarce in San Francisco
Submitted by emohan. Posted on Friday, March 31 @ 16:13:17 EST by emohan
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A new report indicates it costs $13,370 a year to have an infant in full-time child care in San Francisco, and $11,004 a year for preschoolers.
The 54-page report titled “The Economic Impact of the Child Care Industry in the City and County of San Francisco” is a comprehensive look at the social and economic impact of child care for children under the age of 13.
Mayor Gavin Newsom presented the findings from the report at a breakfast Monday with approximately 150 business and city leaders. The report was the result of the mayor asking the San Francisco Advisory Board last year to devise recommendations and strategies for The City’s child care system.
“I don’t think you can talk about an economic strategy, if I may be so crass, if you don’t talk about a child care strategy,” said Newsom. “There is no question that early child development affects return on investment in every conceivable way.”
Newsom said that the report essentially “told us what we already knew” regarding the importance of child care.
“Child care payments feel like an extra mortgage,” said panelist Nancy Schicker, board member of Children’s Council of San Francisco and vice president of Washington Mutual’s Card Services Division. “With two child care payments and a mortgage, it is extremely taxing on our household income.”
Not only is child care in San Francisco costly, there isn’t enough of it, according to the report. There are 833 licensed child care programs in San Francisco with the capacity to care for 22,000 children. In 2004, there were 56,000 children of child care age in San Francisco, meaning The City only has the capacity to care for 39 percent of its children.
Full text available at the Examiner
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MN - Schools face loss of early childhood money
Submitted by emohan. Posted on Friday, March 31 @ 14:15:37 EST by emohan
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School districts around the state will lose thousands of dollars for their early childhood education programs because of bookkeeping errors.
The state is penalizing districts that accumulated early childhood budget reserves last year that averaged more than 25 percent of their income for the program. The Minneapolis school district is taking the biggest monetary hit, at $132,118, but other districts took heavier hits percentage-wise.
The two districts larger than Minneapolis were also penalized, though for much smaller amounts. Anoka-Hennepin was penalized $38,078, while St. Paul got nicked for just $936.
While the Minneapolis reserve exceeded the limit by 19 percent, some small rural districts accumulated more than four times the allowable reserve.
Minneapolis School Board member Sharon Henry-Blythe called the penalty "humiliating and frustrating." District officials said they keep the reserve close to the limit because of uncertainty over state funding, but admit they should have watched the numbers more closely.
Charlie Kyte, executive director of the Minnesota Association of School Administrators, said Minneapolis is not alone. Many of the early childhood education programs hold money in reserve, in case they come up short the next year, he said.
"The school districts, they're really caught in kind of a double bind," he said. "If they spend every dollar they get, the chance is they won't have enough money the next year," he said. But if they hold too much in reserve, they get penalized.
Early childhood programs are mainly financed through a state formula based on the number of preschoolers estimated to live in a district. Districts tax property to pay some of the program costs, while the state also provides aid.
Full text available at the Grand Forks Herald
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