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Improving lives of prekindergarten children to be focus of $15,000 grantBy Joel Stottrup The Princeton school district is the recipient of a $15,000 Initiative Foundation grant to study how it can better prepare prekindergarten pupils for kindergarten and beyond. The grant was given as part of a statewide Minnesota Early Childhood Initiative in which 36 locations (communities, school districts and counties) participate. Grants come from the six regional initiative foundations in the state. Twelve of the 36 sites that are to receive the grants were selected last June, the second 12 that Princeton is part of were just announced, and the next 12 will be announced in 2004. A coalition is to be formed at each of the 36 places. That means people from many areas of work can be part of the planning of how to improve education and development of prekindergarten children. More money will be granted to some or all of the participants to help implement what they decide during their study phase to do. That money will come from a combination of Initiative Foundation and McKnight Foundation money. Why the initiative? Organizers of the initiative claim in an explanatory brochure that nearly one in five Minnesota kindergarten children lacks the language and literacy skills they should have by age 5. The claim goes farther by stating that only about 50 percent demonstrate the basic social skills needed for succeeding in school. "Improved early childhood care and education translate directly into improved school performance," the brochure says. Princeton School Board member Lisa Fobbe, who is part of the local Early Childhood Initiative, said last Thursday she is "passionate" about this subject. Fobbe met with Trinity Lutheran pastor Angie Way, Princeton Area Partnership board members Sue Hix, and Tim Dalton, as well as Initiative Foundation staff members Linda Kaufmann and Matt Kilian, and Superintendent Mary Ann Straley Thursday to explain the Early Childhood Initiative. Princeton Area Partnership is a community-improvement group of which Dalton (who also coordinates Princeton Community Education) is the president and Hix is the secretary. The Cambridge-Isanti school district and Pequot Lakes were chosen for the study grant last June from within the Initiative Foundation that serves Princeton. Kimball was selected with Princeton during this grant round. Initiative Foundation staff will come to Princeton to learn about Princeton's resources for building a team or coalition. It will also try to get an idea of the perceptions people have in Princeton about early childhood care and education, said Kaufmann. Results will be compiled and a "visionary" session will take place in April for as many as 100 people from the area to say what they envision could or should be done to improve early childhood education and development in the area. Priority issues will be identified by May The goal will be to make the Princeton area a "better place for young kids," said Kilian. Kilian and Kaufmann were asked Thursday for ideas they might have for things the school district could do in that regard. Both said they want that to come from people in the district. What is decided in each location will be unique to that place and should be something new, said Kaufmann. One thing that could be improved is more coordination and communication so groups involved with youth know more about what each other are doing, said Dalton. Hix, who helped apply for the study grant, said prekindergarten ages are her favorite. "I feel it's very important to find out how to do a better job for that group," she said. Hix, who talked about the difficulty of keeping volunteers on track in community-improvement programs, called one aspect of the Early Childhood Initiative a "stroke of brilliance." She referred to how a third of the $15,000 study grant will fund a part-time coordinator for the study. As each in the group told why they are enthusiastic about initiatives for early childhood development, Kaufmann referred to a story that came out about two months ago in newspapers. It was about how economists had proven that investments in early childhood education and development bring a net profit through a positive impact on the economy. "Everyone is going to benefit," said Kaufmann. But the "most successful outcomes may not even be projects," Kaufmann added. Instead, it may be a systemic change, or an alteration of people's attitudes toward children and how they help them, she said. Kaufmann added that there is no better time than now, with all the budget cuts, to study how to get the most out of a community's resources. Providing healthy opportunities and appropriate care for prekindergarten children will save in the long run, and will help make better adults, said Fobbe. (Fobbe, who has a background in family counseling and youth ministry in Ramsey County before moving to Princeton, said she has seen a lot of teens she believed would have had fewer problems if they had a different start in life.) Way said she was surprised when she learned of a survey conducted by the Search Institute a few years ago that asked how students at Princeton High School felt about many things in the community. A startling survey result was that only about 17 percent of survey respondents felt "valued" in Princeton, Way said. Way added that she knows many people, including fellow pastors, who feel as "compassionate" about young people as she does. An effort to communicate that could be strengthened, she added. Superintendent Straley, who listened during most of the discussion, gave her feelings this way about the initiative: "Proactive is always better than reactive. It is more effective and is always cheaper in the long run." Straley then quoted U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell: "You can build schools now or you can build prisons later." Kilian recalled that someone had recently asked him why the initiative is focusing on children as young as 5 months old to kindergarten. He answered that inquiry by quoting data that claims 90 percent of development of the human brain occurs under age 5. Princeton Union-Eagle |