Educators Stress Value of Early Childhood Learning

OCALA -- The key to ultimately renovating the Marion County public school system may be to start at the youngest grades and work progressively up, following a properly aligned curriculum.

And that foundation may need to start before kindergarten, said University of Florida College of Education Dean Roderick McDavis, one of seven people who audited the school system for SchoolMatch, a Westerville, Ohio-based company.

"It could well be," McDavis said. "That's where the extension ought to be, at the pre-level.

"If there's learning that's occurring before a child is placed in an organized kindergarten then that child is going to be much further ahead based on the curricula we place at the kindergarten level," he added.

Rob Jacobs, 15, works on an architectural computer at Forest High School Friday.

College Park Elementary School Principal Herbert Dupree agreed, wholeheartedly.

"We set things up in place for five or six years then the dynamics of society changes and we have to rethink what we're doing," Dupree said. "What's really long-term is this early childhood learning and getting them ready for kindergarten."

"I'm the guru of the PreK program, PreK learning," he added. "The reason I'm so supportive of it, is if you get kids coming to kindergarten knowing their numbers, their letters, their shapes, basic knowledge in phonics, you could minimize the amount of remediation you'd need.

"And you'd have kids coming to kindergarten telling you they like school -- that's tremendous," Dupree added.

Like the SchoolMatch auditors, Dupree pointed to brain research that shows brain development goes into overdrive from birth until age 4 or 5.

"Kids are ready to take hold of more rigorous academic subjects," Dupree said. "And we now know that they can come prepared to kindergarten knowing those basic skills.

"We thought we had to do more socializing in PreK and K than academics but we now know that's not true."

From that base, SchoolMatch auditors suggest, the school district must follow a properly aligned curriculum. That means schools at opposite ends of the county should be covering roughly the same material at the same time.

SchoolMatch President and CEO William Bainbridge said that structured curriculum helps counter Marion County's high mobility rate, which ranges between 32 and 34 percent districtwide.

"We believe in academic freedom but we're a little concerned that the focus is maybe too much in the classroom level," Bainbridge said. "Academic freedom carried to an extreme can be very dangerous. That's how gaps get created."

Florida's Sunshine State Standards, and the state mandate to cover specific subject areas make the question of how Marion County will align its curriculum moot.

"For the last two years we've been ... aligning our curriculum," said Mary Lou Van Note, secondary education supervisor for the Marion County school district.

"So each year we should be progressively enhancing and building on skills from the previous level," she added. "So we're truly talking one grade level to (the next) grade level."

The first two areas where the district has been lining up with Sunshine State Standards are language arts and mathematics.

"We felt the initial impact should focus on those essential areas, language arts and math," said Elementary Education Supervisor Nancy Leonard.

Next, the district will align art, music, physical education and health curriculum.

When the curriculum's changed, Van Note said, teachers must be given new strategies to teach every student.

"One of the things that's nice is we are able to offer this summer, for the first time, a summer teacher academy," Van Note said. Courses will be offered to teachers ranging from brain-compatible instruction to effective reading, writing across the curriculum and algebraic thinking.

"It's kind of like when you retool a major industry," Van Note said. "If you do not retrain the people working on the floor or in the classrooms then we cannot expect there to be a tremendous change."

Student progress can be monitored through the ABACUS computer system, allowing teachers to know what skills each pupil has, both strengths and weaknesses.

But even in the schools that have the system installed, student achievement data is being gathered still. Individual test scores won't be as valuable as a student's track record.

"A test is only a snapshot of one day in a student's life," Van Note said.

If you consider the properly aligned curriculum a Christmas tree, then the specific programs needed to enhance student learning are the ornaments.

And while SchoolMatch praised Marion County for its college-preparatory classes, course offering for other students must be enhanced.

Technology must play a greater role in each student's lives, the auditors recommend. If not at school, than at some sort of afterschool homework centers developed through a public-private partnership within the community.

McDavis admitted the concept of putting a computer on each desk may be cost prohibitive. But he said the district must find ways to create either school-based technology centers by making existing machines available after hours or within the community.

"Then the question becomes how many young people can access those computers," McDavis said.

Specifically, the audit keyed on reaching students "in the middle," those not targeted for special needs or honors classes.

Dupree said the school district must use individual student learning styles to its advantage.

He cited the school system's tech prep program as a good way to reach those kids "in the middle," but that targeting must start, at least, in middle school.

"Smaller classroom sizes, if that's available, can provide schools with more individualized sessions with teachers and students," Dupree said. "We've got to get citizens to realize that there are some things that we need to do that will enable us to help identify those kids."

The biggest fear educators have is those students in the middle become prime candidates to drop out. And in Marion County, one of every six students entering freshman year choose to drop out rather than graduate.

"The high school gets a lot of the press for the dropout rate but we need to address that in the middle school and even the elementary school level," said Howard Middle School Principal Scott Hackmyer. "Some of them are just looking forward to that birthday when they can drop out."

Here too, state mandates force some changes. Every school district has set aside some time for remedial instruction to students who need extra attention to catch up to their classmates.

At Anthony Elementary School, where children are in remediation as part of the "Koalaty Active Time" program, students are loaned a bag of educational goodies that includes calculators, dictionaries, notepads, rulers, word cards and books.

"There are all sorts of educational tools that they can use in that manner," said Anthony Assistant Principal Phil Leppert. "When they graduate from fifth grade, they can take it with them."

Title I Coordinator Gina Evers masterminded the school supply program. Parents went by the school Friday for a curriculum fair, met briefly with Evers, then picked up their students' tools. The school distributed one bag per household. The $8,000 cost came out of the remediation budget.

School Board Chairwoman Cheryl Appelquist said that remedial education, getting students to read on a grade level, should go a long way towards reducing the drop-out rate. But the ultimate goal of remediation is to decrease its importance in the school system.

"We're hoping we're going to work ourselves out of the remediation program, that we won't be remediating five years from now," Appelquist said.

And, she said, legislation now in the works in Tallahassee will likely set the framework for a coalition of all entities involved in early child education and school readiness.

"Certainly school readiness is important, when you look at all the brain-based research," Appelquist said, adding that ensuring every child has been a long-standing goal.

"We've got to quit talking about it and implement the programs," she added. "Parent involvement will have to be key and there are going to have to be some parent education programs."

Appelquist echoed Dupree's thoughts that the school system has to target individual children but also stressed it will take more than a computer tracking program.

"That takes manpower, that takes guidance," Appelquist said. "It can't be five members on the board, it has to be the community. We have to find a way.

"And I think that will be the goal, to help ever child," she continued. "It's going to take additional manpower, it's going to take additional space. That's going to take additional dollars.