District 27J reminds parents about free preschool program

    BRIGHTON — In School District 27J, classes don’t start at kindergarten.

Photo by Emily Dougherty

The state funds the district’s free preschool program, the Colorado Preschool Program. It focuses on at-risk students and students with disabilities. Preschoolers are monitored on all areas of development, including social skills, physical gross motor skills, fine motor skills, language, cognitive learning, math, science and technology.

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    For many families with young children, they begin with preschool. However, many might not be aware that the district offers a free preschool program for those qualify.
    According to Bethany Ager, 27J preschool curriculum coordinator, at-risk students and kids who need intervention before kindergarten are the target audience for their preschool program – the state-funded Colorado Preschool Program.
    To qualify for the program, parents must fill out an application, available online at www.sd27j.org or at the district’s Educational Services Center, 18551 E. 160th Ave., in Brighton. Applications for next year’s preschool program are due June 15.
    According to Ager, in the past two weeks, 60 applications have already been returned to the district.
    “I believe the preschool program started in the early ‘90s with one little preschool with two classrooms. It’s just grown and grown. We have 19 classrooms right now,” Ager said.
    All of 27J’s elementary schools host preschool in their buildings, except Pennock and South Elementary, whose students go to the Brighton Learning and Resource Campus, 1850 E. Egbert St. Thimmig Elementary, which hasn’t previously offered preschool to its students, will add two preschool classrooms for the 2012-13 school year.
    The new Brantner Elementary will have preschool available for the 2013-14 school year, Ager said. Preschoolers who would have gone there will attend West Ridge next year.
In the CPP, if elementary schools are to capacity, community partners, such as Kiddie Academy, Brighton Montessori, and Adams County Head Start, step in to help.
    The preschool program mimics 27J’s kindergarten program with half-day classes from 8:30 to 11:30 a.m. followed by a 12:30 to 3:30 afternoon program.
    “We cram a lot into those three hours,” Ager said. “Most teachers start their day out with circle time. Students say good morning and practice their name, number counting, the day of the week, the weather and patterns. Then we do what we call dialogic reading, which is our reading program.”
    Dialogic reading begins with the teacher introducing a book. The first day, the teacher takes students on a picture walk through the book. Ager said this builds excitement by asking “What do you think is going to happen?”
    On the second day the teacher reads the book to the class. On the third day, the students read the book and start answering open ended questions, such as “What do you think is going to happen next?” and “Why are they acting that way?” On the fourth day, the students take on the teaching role and retell the story to the teacher, using props to help act it out.
    According to Ager, they try to keep their reading groups small. CPP classrooms are capped at 16 students. While eight students are doing dialogic reading, the other eight are working on handwriting and how to make their letters and the sounds that go with them.
    Part of the three-hour day is also devoted to a social/emotional curriculum called “Incredible Years,” where teachers talk about behaviors, how to regulate feelings and how to problem solve.
    After recess, the students come back for snack time and then spend the last hour of their day in “center time,” which gives the kids a chance to pick a station in the classroom to work and play. They can choose from creating art, to reading in the library, to working on words at the writing center, to dramatic play with costumes and props.
    “They can move freely throughout the room and really build on peer interactions and socializing skills,” Ager said.
According to Ager, much of their preschool program is helping kids with their social skills. School readiness lessons focus on students being able to write their name, introduction to letters and reading comprehension.
    Offering preschool to district families, specifically at-risk populations, is having major impacts including big educational rewards that could be helping close academic gaps.
    “The great thing that we have noticed, and are documenting in the district, is that at-risk kids who received preschool are far outperforming at-risk kids who didn’t get preschool. They’re closing that achievement gap really fast,” Ager said. “It’s been very effective.”
    Because the CPP is funded by the state, there is only a certain amount of spots open throughout Colorado school districts. The CDE determines how many spots each school district gets.
    “We’ve maintained 420 spots,” Ager said. “Every year we fill our spots. I think as our district grows, we’ll have to propose to CDE to allow us more spots to keep up with our growth.”
    In addition to the 420 CPP students, the district also provides preschool to students with disabilities. According to Ager, this year, their preschooler with disabilities count was up to around 315.
    “Everyone comes in with IEP (individual education plan) goals written by our Child Find team,” Ager said.
    The district’s Child Find team screens children for developmental disabilities. According to Ager, the team has a modular set up at Southeast. Parents who have concerns about their child’s development can set up an appointment to go through a hearing and motor skills test, and meet with a speech/language pathologist. The screening is provided to district parents at no cost.
    Preschool students with disabilities get support all year long on their IEP goals, whether they need occupational or physical therapy, said Ager.
    At the recommendation of the CDE, district 27J adopted a creative curriculum for its early childhood classrooms. The curriculum is aligned to the CPP’s standard for development which monitors kids on all areas of development, including social skills, physical gross motor skills, fine motor skills, language, cognitive learning, math, science and technology.
    Grades are based on observation data that teachers document for each student, such as “I observed your child holding his pencil correctly and forming letters in his name.”
    “Instead of an ABCD scale, this shows where each student is on a growth development scale and helps parents see exactly where their kids are developmentally,” Ager said.
    “Parents like knowing that their kids are in the school district and are being taught by licensed teachers in the state of Colorado. Every room has at least one teacher and a group leader. Special education classes have a teacher, group leader and a para. It provides a lot of opportunities to group kids and work with them more one-on-one.”
    According to her, early childhood education classrooms consist of CPP kids, Spanish speakers and some special education kids. Early childhood special education classrooms are capped at 50 percent students with IEPs and 50 percent CPP students.
    “We want all of our rooms to have a balance with typically developing peers,” Ager said.
The student population in 27J’s preschool classrooms span the world, said Ager. There are students who speak Muong, Vietnamese, Spanish and Turkish all in one room. Teachers have worked with children who only speak African dialects or who are deaf and need to work on signing.
    “Our teachers have been really trained on English language strategies. It doesn’t apply to just Spanish speakers. You use the same strategies,” Ager said. “District translators come in. We use a lot of picture support and follow a strict routine.”
    One benefit of the preschool program is that children can start as early as three years before kindergarten.
    It just keeps building on their school readiness skills and prepares them for kindergarten so well,” said Ager. “Our goal is to get the cases fuller faster. There’s a need, but I don’t think people know it’s available.”

Contact Emily Dougherty at 303-659-2522 ext. 223 or edougherty@metrowestnewspapers.com.