Carter is program manager for the Edison PreK-8 School Taking Off to Success (TOTS) program modeled after The Baby College in Harlem, which offers a nine-week parenting workshop to expectant parents and those raising children up to age 3.
The three-year pilot program will work with 100 families living in distressed neighborhoods near Edison and Ruskin PreK-8 schools.
The Human Services Levy will fund the effort, with $200,000 being allocated annually over three years to East End Community Services and the Dayton Urban League if they demonstrate progress is being made.
Former University of Dayton President Brother Raymond L. Fitz, a force behind the neighborhood initiative and member of the Family and Children First Council, said the key to success is “mending the pipeline at the very beginning” before children fall too far behind.
Federal money could find way to Dayton
Kathy Emery, community affairs manager for the city’s Planning and Community Development department, said a local coalition plans to apply for the federal Promise Neighborhood grant program, an Obama initiative to put education at the center of efforts to fight poverty in urban and rural areas.
Local officials see a basis in successful local programs such as Dayton Public Schools’ focus on improving its K-3 curriculum and EDvention, a collaborative dedicated to accelerating science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) talent.
“The whole idea of Promise Neighborhoods is to target neighborhoods were there really are a lot of challenges,” Emery said, “but also a lot of assets that we can build upon.”
Incentives big part of TOTS budget
Diane Brogan-Adams, program director of East End’s Lynda A. Cohen TOTS program, said parenting sessions will start in October.
Both agencies have been recruiting parents to participate in three-hour classes on Saturdays that run for nine weeks on topics such as literacy and immunization. Participants will have a chance to connect with other parents and put in touch with other resources in the community.
TOTS officials will offer incentives such as $10 grocery store gift cards. At the end of the nine-week sessions, any parent who has attended all of them would be eligible for something like one month’s free rent.
“That’s a big part of our budget, the incentives,” said Brogan-Adams, former executive director of Project Read.
Kindergarten readiness a key
Robyn Lightcap, director of Ready, Set, Soar, an early childhood collaborative in Montgomery County working to ensure every child is ready for kindergarten, has studied state Kindergarten Readiness Assessment — Literacy (KRA-L) data. The KRA-L scores help educators evaluate children’s literacy skills at the beginning of the kindergarten year.
The KRA-L measures six essential indicators of success: answering questions, sentence repetition, rhyming identification and rhyming production, letter identification and initial sounds. The composite scores fall between three score bands.
Lightcap noted that 73 percent of students in Oakwood fall into Band 3, which indicates advanced students, some of whom may be reading.
Dayton students, meanwhile, have about 80 percent across Bands 1 and 2.
“It’s almost flipped,” Lightcap said, noting a child in Band 1 may not be able to identify letters.
The scores don’t show some of the hidden struggles facing poor families.
“Clearly, in low-income situations, they could be moving constantly. They are highly mobile. They could be trying to get food and basic needs met,” Lightcap said. “Learning to read may not be at the top of a family’s list.”
Fitz said the University of Dayton and Wright State University will evaluate the program’s effect on KRA-L scores.
He also wants to know if it will improve third-grade reading scores.
“That’s what I’m hoping for,” he said.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2094 or mkissell@Dayton DailyNews.com.
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