(gentle music) - The early learning period of a child's life, from birth to age five, is the most pivotal stage in their development.

On this edition of "In Studio," we'll hear from organizations in the Pensacola area who are dedicated to making a difference in early learning.

(bright music) A lot of time and resources are put towards improving our schools, as there should be, but research shows that a child's development before school, starts from birth to age five, is the most important stage to set them up for success in school and life.

This prime opportunity for brain development cannot be regained.

The data shows in Escambia County, a majority of children enter kindergarten, not ready.

On this show, we'll hear from organizations in the Pensacola area that are dedicated to changing that.

And we're gonna start with a group that focuses on the earliest stages from birth to age three, the Student Community Institute, or SCI, the nonprofit founded by local philanthropist Quint Studer, is all about improving the quality of life in our community.

They do it in many ways with a mantra of building brains, building jobs, and building community.

But today, we'll be discussing their efforts in building brains.

Joining us right now is Frency Moore, SCI, Early Brain Development Advocate, and Dante Shepherd, SCI, Early Brain Development Program Manager.

Full disclosure, I also work at SCI as Chief Storyteller, so I'm very familiar with the great and impactful work that these two do.

So thank you so much for joining us.

- We're glad to be here with you, Steve.

I'm glad that I share office space with you as well.

- Absolutely.

Saw each other at the office earlier today.

Now we're out here.

- Thank you for having us.

- All right.

So Frency, SCI does a lot of different things to make the community better.

So why did they get in the business of building brains?

- That's a great question, Steve.

As most people may know, our founder, Quint Studer and his wife, Rishy Studer, actually hired some folks around 2014 to do some research in our community.

We started with a dashboard and a quality of life survey, and they gathered some measuring markers in our community.

And what they found, one particular number that really stood out to Quint, was high school graduation.

And at the time, it was at 66% in our community, Escambia County in particular.

So they wanted to do some research on that.

As they got further into the research, they quickly realized that kindergarten readiness was closely related to high school graduation rates.

So as they continued to look into that, they realized, "Okay, if a child is not ready for kindergarten, there is a high probability that they're not going to be graduating from high school."

And so, doing the research, they actually found that if we invest in a child from ages zero through three, then that's what's gonna make sure that they're ready for kindergarten.

Which leads us to talking about Dr. Dana Suskind from the University of Chicago.

There was much research done there as far as exposing children to words and books, and making sure that the parents were singing to their children because it takes a whole lot to make sure that a child's ready for kindergarten.

- Right, so, SCI has partnered with Dr. Dana Suskind, who's a tremendous researcher and pediatric surgeon, social scientist at the University of Chicago.

She's written bestselling books.

So what's some of the research that she came out with, and how has SCI partnered with her to develop some of these programs?

- Yeah, so Dr. Dana Suskind is actually a cochlear implant surgeon.

And what she observed in her field of studies was that as the children started to hearing, after the surgery, some of 'em gained huge progress, and some of 'em were not progressing as well.

And so as she started to study that, she realized that a lot had to do with their home environment and how they were exposed to the educational setting in their own home.

She found that parents who engaged their children and played with their children and actually had conversations with their children were more likely to progress in that after receiving their hearing aids.

So obviously that then translated to actually every child in our community.

85% of the brain is developed by the age of three.

So even though a child cannot talk back at an early stages, zero to two, they still are intaking all of that information.

So the more a parent speaks to their child, the more a parent reads to their child, the more they're exposed to words in general, the more likely that their brain will be well developed by the time they turn five.

- Yeah, the 85%, that always gets me.

85% of the brain is developed in the first three years, that shows you how critical this stage is.

And one of the things that Dr. Suskind spurred on was the idea of an early learning city.

When she was first here in 2016, she coined that phrase and said, "Pensacola can be the first early learning city."

So for our perspective, Frency, what is an early learning city, and how much of a driving force has that become?

- So as a kindergarten teacher, I was actually in the classroom for the last 10 years, and I've observed this as well.

It takes different parts of a child's development for them to be ready for kindergarten, one being their social-emotional health, right?

Which building a relationship with a parent or a caregiver on a regular basis on those early stages can assure that the child is emotionally ready and socially ready for school.

The second part of it is their physical health.

So that's when an early learning city concept came about.

What if we had areas in our community, not just a playground, or not just an area that's designed for children, but our whole community?

What if everywhere a child went, there was an opportunity to learn?

And then as well as physically ready for kindergarten, if they are playing in a playground or if they are playing outside, a parent is more likely to observe whether or not that child is physically healthy.

And then the third part of it is the actual academic readiness, ensuring that we have VPK programs in our community, making sure that we have early learning centers in our community, then we're making sure that the children are actually exposed to academic materials, that they're gonna be ready for kindergarten.

- All right.

SCI has a lot of different programs that target these areas that you and Dante both work on.

The first one is the Brain Bag program.

That's where life starts in the hospitals with the Brain Bag program.

I know you're extremely involved with Frency.

So tell us, what is the Brain Bag program, and what impact is it having?

- Yes, I'm very passionate about the Brain Bag program, because it's the very first step for us as a community.

It's not comprehensive, but it is the very first step of ensuring that parents are educated and encouraged to then go home and start the process of learning for their children.

The Brain Bag is an actual bag, a gift bag, with a picture book in it.

It also has a milestone guide that highlights all of the milestones that the children will go through from zero to five.

So then the parent is educated, they know what to expect through each stage.

It also has community resources.

Dante and I just designed a wonderful flyer with all of the different nonprofits in our community that are providing services for children in that age group, zero to three.

So if the parent is looking for a new pediatrician, or where the library is located, or if they need mental health services, they can go into the Brain Bag and find that information.

There's also a toy.

So it's an opportunity for us as a community to go into the hospital in the first 24 hours, right after a new parent has a baby, and just say, "Hey, we care about your family.

We wanna teach you, and we wanna encourage you to be your child's very first teacher."

So we have four hospitals, three in Escambia County, Sacred Heart being the biggest hospital locally.

They birth between 300 and 400 babies.

So not only we have all of our nurses in the community working on this, but we also have volunteers who assist us on a regular basis.

- So every hospital in the area, they're all involved.

They all participate in the Brain Bag program.

And it is a video also, right?

There's the resource bag and then a video that's given to the parents to watch as well.

- Correct, yes.

So when we have our volunteers or the nurse come in, they gift the bag to the parent and they say, "Here's a video that can help you understand the importance of early brain development."

It's only about three to four minutes long, but it's very comprehensive, interesting and informative.

So the parent watches that.

- Yeah, I've been in the hospitals, I've seen how effective it is to get this information, to get that video, and it really puts an impact on parents on what they should focus on and what's important.

But the SCI's efforts don't stop there.

After that, we target the basics, text messaging service.

Which is a follow up to the Brain Bag program.

So Dante, that's something you're very involved in.

Tell us what that is and what the idea is.

- Well, first of all, I wanna say that the Brain Bag is so important.

When I'm out in the community, not only will they tell me if they receive the Brain Bag, they'll tell me if they did not receive the Brain Bag.

And they'll ask me, can they get their brain bag?

And so it just shows how important it is for them to receive that first initial information.

The basics, text messaging, basics insights, is what it's called, is one of the gears of Dr. Ron Ferguson's, the basics network or the basics principles.

Those basic principles that are covered in this text messaging program.

There're five principles, Steve, that's one, maximized love, manage stress.

Number two, talk, sing, and point.

Number three, count, group and compare.

Number four, explore, movement, and play.

And then number five is not only read, but discuss stories as well.

What they do is they send out two text messages, one time a week.

It's gonna be a tip or age appropriate text for a skill set that your child should be displaying at that particular time.

And then the second text is to reinforce that tip or that skill, so they're provide an activity that the parent can do with their child so they can continue to develop them and grow them.

- You mentioned Dr. Ron Ferguson.

He's the one that developed it.

He's from Harvard University.

And you've talked to him before?

- Oh, I've had an opportunity to talk to him.

I had an opportunity to go to Mobile and hear him speak, and he really went into detail.

He's so passionate about early learning, so passionate about early brain development for children, and he just really believes, as you said a little earlier, that it's so important that we catch them early, between that zero to three year old age.

- Yeah and again, this is something I've seen in practice.

Parents, some things are simple ones, but things you forget to do, you get busy with your day, and this is a huge reminder.

Then a lot of 'em are also tips and techniques that they have not thought of to develop their child's brain.

So it's extremely impactful.

Obviously, the more people that we reach, the more effective we can be.

And I know another thing that you do is a Parent Outreach program, that you're getting back into for SCI, so what is Parent Outreach?

What is the goal?

Who are you trying to reach there, and what do the efforts entail?

- So Parent Outreach is an opportunity for us to go into some of our area housing.

We've had an opportunity partnership with the Area Housing Commission here in Pensacola, and one of our outreaches in Marino Court right now.

This has been going on and I've had an opportunity to pick it back up since I've been with SCI.

And we go in, we teach a lot of these principles about development.

We use some of the things that Dr. Dana Suskind has provided, as well as Dr. Ron Ferguson.

We give the parents an opportunity to sign up for the basics insights so they can receive that nudge as well.

And then we do exactly what we do inside of the hospitals as well, and providing resources.

So when they fill out their form to join the Parent Outreach, we also have questions on things that they need help with.

I'll have parents that say that they need assistance with food and clothing.

I have one that told me that they need assistance with getting their driver's license or getting a GED.

So we go over tips and activities that they can do with their children to help grow their brain, as well as provide them resources.

- All right.

Another program that is really a neat program is the Sibling Brain Builder program.

And that's something you're involved with Frency, trying to co-op siblings, to help in the cause and then help them as well.

So what's that all about?

- So the concept started with the idea that let's go out into the title one schools in our community and find older, elementary school aged children, fourth grade and fifth grade, who have young siblings at home.

The bond between the siblings, maybe a parent is busy, or maybe a parent is working two jobs, but if they have an older sibling at home, that person counts as a caregiver as well, and they can expose their babies to many words throughout the day as well.

So that was the original concept.

We thought, "Well, if we can incentivize our fourth and fifth graders to go home and read to their babies, then their babies will be exposed to more words, therefore they'll be ready for kindergarten in the future."

But what we actually found, which I love, is the fact that the fourth graders and the fifth graders who participated in the program the first year actually show huge improvement in their reading comprehension and in their ability to read as well.

Because it's a baby book, it's a picture book, and it's not a very stressful environment, they're going home, they're reading to their baby.

They know that classmates are not gonna be judging them.

They're willing to read out loud, They're practicing their reading skills, and it actually helped them become more proficient readers.

So it's just a great program all around.

We're currently at Wise Elementary, we're at Dixon School of Arts, and we're also at Global Learning Academy.

And we are seeing huge improvements in the reading comprehension and proficiency in our fourth and fifth graders, but also obviously making sure that their babies at home, are being exposed to academic material and the words that they need to develop their brain.

- And another part of the concept of the early learning city is you want learning opportunities everywhere in this includes outside when you're playing.

So another thing SCI is doing are these early learning sensory gardens, they facilitated several of these.

So what is an early learning sensory garden?

- So going back to when we talked about Dr. Dana Suskind, and the concept of an early learning city, there are many different ways that a child can be ready for kindergarten.

One is a social and emotional component, and then the physical component, being outside, playing with natural materials, such as sand, or climbing a tree.

Those are all building their fine motor skills.

That's actually part of building their brain.

So the concept of an early learning garden came from that particular idea that maybe a playground in our public parks are more designed for older kids, five to eighteen years old.

So providing them a space that's safe for younger children, between three and four years old, that has a lot of natural materials, that helps activate their curiosity, helps them want to be outside and helps them really get down and play with the small things, and help with the fine motor skills is really important.

So that's where the concept of an early learning garden came about.

- What's unique, Steve, is that out in the area housing, we have one in Gonzalez Court as well as Marino Court.

And when I'm going to Parent Outreach, I've seen children in that area making sure that they're playing and having a nice time.

So they're able to exercise, they're able to play, but most of all, like Frency said, they're able to learn.

- So all these programs take money, right?

They don't just happen.

What are the funding sources for SCI?

- Well, one of our huge funding sources is Light Up Learning.

It's one of our huge fundraisers.

We had a great time last year, but it gives businesses, organizations, who support early learning an opportunity to donate to the early learning program.

And then they have an opportunity to do some activities while they're at the event where they also can donate, but they receive some things.

- Yeah, but really, so all the money that comes from different from that event, but also just sponsors and partners,, and just whoever wants to get involved and help this effort.

- Right and the Brain Bag program in particular, is partially funded by the Department of Education.

That's a grant that comes from the state.

And then as you guys mentioned, we have private partners, people in our community who are just passionate about making sure that our community is becoming a better place to live.

And then individuals, we have family foundations and individuals who are very passionate and generous, and they support our programs as well.

- Of course, a big thing is to measure your success.

We know that at SCI, that's a big thing we focus on.

So how is success measured within these programs?

- So with the Brain Bag program in particular, we ask parents, "Before we came to you and before you watched our video, how familiar were you with the concept of an early brain development?"

And they'll grade themselves.

And then after they watched the video, we ask them to now grade themselves again.

And it's a huge improvement.

Currently, I think it's a 6.8, before they've watched the video, as far as knowing what the concept of early brain development is, to a 9.5 after they've watched the videos and spoke to our volunteers or nurses.

So that's the one way we're measuring the quality of the program and how educational it is.

We obviously keep data.

Currently in 2022, we had 6,200 babies born in Escambia, in Santa Rosa County.

And we've given away 5,300 bags.

So that's more than 90% participation for that.

And we wanna continue to do that.

- So what are some future plans, some future hopes, as SCI continues towards this goal of building an early learning city?

- Well first we want to saturate the entire community with the desire to help children learn early.

We want not only each person, but organizations, we want businesses.

Can you imagine going to a barbershop, where a barbershop is reinforcing early learning?

Where not only does the child is getting a haircut, but they're reading a book.

We want for a person to go into the libraries, we want 'em to go into the grocery store.

We want the entire community to believe that every child should have an opportunity to learn and give support.

- Early learning city.

We love the concept that we've all seen examples of these programs working and making a difference.

- We would love to consider Pensacola as America's first early learning city.

That's definitely our goal.

- I mean, we're the first city, so why not be the first early learning city?

- I love it.

Well, you guys are doing a lot to make it happen, so appreciate that and appreciate you guys joining me on the show tonight.

- Thank you for having us.

- Yeah, we'll see you back at the office.

- We'll see you soon.

- All right.

After efforts around the earliest stages of life, the focus shifts to the critical Pre-K period, ages four and five.

We'll hear from groups dedicated to making a difference in that area, coming up next.

(bright music) A key factor in improving kindergarten readiness is helping prepare kids right before they start school, in the Pre-K stage, ages four and five.

VPK programs are a big part, but the efforts go beyond that.

In this segment, we'll hear from organizations focused on making an impact on the Pre-K years.

Bruce Swanson is the Executive Director of the Early Learning Coalition of Escambia County, and Kristy Craig is the Program Director for ReadyKids!

Thank you very much for joining us, both of you.

- Thank you.

- Thank you very much.

- So Bruce, the Early Learning Coalition, is part of a statewide group of coalitions, tell us a little bit about it and and how it works here in Escambia County.

- Well, each of the coalitions for their respective county, or counties is the oversight agency funding conduit for both the school readiness and the VPK programs.

One is federal and the VPK is exclusively a state funded program.

- So VPK, for people that are not familiar, what is that and what is the coalition's role?

Is it overarching within VPK?

- Well, the long title is voluntary Pre-Kindergarten.

By state constitution, every four-year-old, the year they're four years old, is entitled to get a free year of VPK, overlapped in the same timeframe as they would otherwise go to elementary school or indoor kindergarten.

And what we do at the coalition is help them get started, ensure that they're adhering to educational standards and quality standards as well, and come in and assess them on a regular basis for contractual compliance, but more importantly for quality to make sure they're doing what they need to do to educate our children and get them ready for that first year.

It's only about, on average, a three to four hour a day program for most places.

But for instance, the school district's a good example of who actually use other funding to make it an all day program for their four-year-olds.

And there's others that do that as well throughout the county.

- So what you guys do is within state guidelines, but are there particular ones within Escambia County?

You run things in a particular way that is most beneficial to what we're doing here.

- Well, I think we have a good mix of types of providers.

The school district is our largest single provider.

About a third of our children go there.

And then we have a variety of faith-based providers as well as private providers, all in centers of various sizes of various orientation.

There's a lot of latitude in terms of the mechanics of the curriculum and the type of curriculum that they want to put in place.

As long as they curriculum adhere to development of the appropriate standards, they're gonna be okay by us.

But we do a lot of coaching too.

I have very aggressive coaches that get out there and we teach adults how to teach children.

That's what I'd like to say.

And we do a very good job of it.

I think it's one of the things that distinguishes, particularly Escambia County, more so than any of the other coalitions that I know of, is the level and depth of time we're willing to put into our providers as much as they're willing to receive.

I have people prepared to give.

- All right, Christie.

ReadyKids!

It has an exclamation point on the end.

So we know you guys are passionate.

So what exactly does ReadyKids!

do?

- Well, ReadyKids!

is a local nonprofit, and we are solely focused on working with Pre-K students and their families.

And our entire mission is to help get children and their families ready for the first day of kindergarten and beyond.

And we have a three-prong approach to kindergarten readiness, at ReadyKids!

That's our Reading Pals program, which is Pre-K mentoring, where volunteers come out from the community, caring adults, who are background checked and trained to work one-on-one with students in schools.

That is going to help our children develop early illiteracy and social emotional skills so that they can really go into school starting ready to learn.

Our family engagement efforts are focused on helping parents become their child's first, best and most important teacher.

So we provide services and resources and training that helps them to be that first teacher for their child.

And then we also support our educators because we know that we can't do it alone.

They're often going into their own pockets.

So if we can offer them extra hands, extra items, snacks for the class, anything to help them to keep from going into their own pockets or spending even more time outside of the school walls, we're there to help them.

- Now ReadyKids!

is relatively new.

I think it started 2021, but it grew out a previous program, ECARE.

So what's the history there and then why it transitioned to ReadyKids!

- Well, ReadyKids!

it is from 2007.

So ReadyKids!

is ECARE.

ECARE was established in 2007 and really it was built out of that need for students that are being missed before going into the official K-12 system.

But ECARE was Every Child A Reader in Escambia.

It's a big name to explain.

And so we really wanted a mission or a name that reflected our mission, which is helping kids get ready.

So ReadyKids!

was born to again, help children get prepared for day one of kindergarten and beyond.

- All right.

So the focus of everything you guys do is kindergarten readiness.

- [Kristy] Yes.

- Bruce, where are the numbers at with kindergarten readiness and what's been the trend there?

- Using the current state standards, we're on record, and it's comparative if nothing else, that part is valid.

We're in the mid-forties in terms of our number of our children that are ready as they're being assessed when they get to kindergarten.

I'm looking forward to the coming years, because we're now starting to do those same assessments in our VPK classes.

So we'll get a little bit better fidelity in comparison.

We're preparing them using the same tools, making the same transitions.

So I'm looking forward to that.

The state average is somewhere right around 50%.

I personally have some issues with how the state does it's standards because of where they put the cut scores.

I think more of our students are actually ready, but even if it was say, even 60%, it still wouldn't be satisfactory.

That's way too low.

We definitely need to make a better effort to get our children ready.

We need to get our parents engaged, like Kristy said, and ensure our children are ready to even come to VPK to begin with and beyond.

- And really COVID affected the numbers adversely.

- Yeah, there was a big dip there.

As you can imagine, numbers of students participating in VPK really went down those two years as well.

I'm happy to say we're stepping back towards, and almost got back up to around 2,000 children.

And here locally in VPK each year, traditionally in the years prior to COVID, we had around 2,200 to 2,300 on average.

So we're getting real close to that.

Matter of fact, we're looking at our current enrollments and I think we're gonna hit 2,000 again this year, which is a good thing we're getting the word out there.

We are open and ready for business.

So parents, if you've got a four-year-old, come see me.

- All right.

So ReadyKids!

has a lot of programs, that try to target these things.

You've mentioned Reading Pals.

What have you seen of how effective that is?

What difference Reading Pals makes.

- We have seen that Reading Pals is incredibly effective.

We work with about 200 Pre-K students every single year, and we get to see their scores from the VPK assessment, now Star Early Literacy, which is new this year, to see that the students who are starting in our program where their scores are at the beginning of the year, and get comparative data for students who are not in our program, to see that when you have a Reading Pal it makes a difference.

We see that our kids that have a Reading Pal are making such more significant gains in the areas of print knowledge, phonological awareness, mathematical thinking.

So that one-on-one time with an adult is so impactful, because it doesn't matter what socioeconomic background you come from, having 45 minutes of undivided attention from a caring adult is very difficult to get.

So it's building social emotional skills, a love for learning and a love for reading as well.

- And obviously the key to that is the volunteers.

Where do you get your volunteers for this?

- Our volunteers come from all over the community.

Pre COVID, a lot of our volunteer numbers were from retired or senior individuals.

Now it's probably more 50, 50, where we do still have some retired individuals.

A lot of people who are coming from the workforce.

And we also work with UWF to have volunteers come out from early education majors as well.

- You have a number of family engagement programs.

Reading Rosie is one of those.

- ReadyRosie, yes.

- ReadyRosie, yeah.

- Yep.

ReadyRosie is our universal offering.

It's really for any family.

We partner closely with SCI, 'cause we know that they have the basics.

And so essentially when a parent has a child that moves beyond that birth of three age, we want them to roll directly into ReadyRosie so that they can keep learning at home.

ReadyRosie sends two minute modeled moment videos to parents' phones so that it's easy, it's accessible.

And what it does is it shows some ways that they can interact with their child anywhere that they are.

Every opportunity is a learning moment, whether you're putting away the laundry, you're putting away the groceries, you're climbing on the jungle gym, and how do you take that opportunity and turn it into conversation that is meaningful and impactful for a child's brain.

- And ReadyRosie is something that the coalition has partnered with them on?

- Oh, yes.

This year we went all all in with ReadyRosie and basically turned ReadyKids!

into our executive agent to deliver it to parents and hopefully they'll get it and use it over the summer and prevent summer slide.

And so we're big proponents of it, and we're big proponents of what ReadyKids!

is doing with it.

They know how to deliver it.

They're gonna get the data feedback that we need.

And my staff is out doing the teaching.

They're taking it and actually putting it into actual action and we do appreciate what they do for us.

- And another thing they do is Born Learning trails.

Which I've seen there's some pictures of that.

Pretty cool stuff and seen it out there.

So what is that?

How did you get that done and what's the impact there?

- Yeah, the Born Learning Trails, it's actually a United Way initiative and ReadyKids!

was able to bring Born Learning trails into the community through the lead class of 2022.

So we were selected as one of their programs.

And it is an opportunity when you are just out and about at the park with your family that it's turning playtime into learning time.

And it's actually an incredible, all comprehensive type of initiative from United Way, the Born Learning Initiative.

They also have academies, but essentially it's incorporating learning while you're at the park.

So there are signs along the walking paths and the walking paths have art on the ground that are encouraging and inviting.

They use your imagination, make you think creatively.

And so if you are just out there playing, you can turn it into an opportunity to talk about the motion that you're doing, the sounds that you're hearing, the things that you're seeing.

And just an opportunity to think more critically about the world around you.

- Of course, great to have programs like that, but childcare is also a big issue to have.

Which there's a issue with that everywhere, but Escambia County is a big problem with that.

One of the things that you guys do is the school readiness program where you provide some financial assistance for people.

So what is that program, how extensive is it and what difference does that make?

- It's a federal program.

They turn the money over to the state.

The state in turn turns it over to us via the Department of Education.

It's subsidized childcare for working parents.

If you're making below generally 150% of federal poverty, which is roughly about 45,000 for a family of four.

And then you can qualify to get in.

And depending on where you are in the scale, determines how much of that cost of childcare is paid for by us.

There are parent fees, but you see that's a dollar or $2 a day out of the 25 to $35 that we're paying to care for a child.

And so it really does make a difference.

It's a huge boon to our local economy.

We enable thousands of parents to be able to work, because we're paying for their childcare, which they would not otherwise be able to afford.

We're actually targeted to make sure they pay no more than 10% out of pocket for childcare.

- How strong is the funding source there?

Is it where you want it?

- Right now, it's right where it needs to be, only because we have a staffing shortage in our childcare facilities.

If I could get more people to work, then I could ask more money from the state to pay for more children.

I have a wait list right now.

Not because of a lack of funding, but because of lack of people to care for the children.

I could bring everybody off the wait list, but they would have no place to go because there's not enough people to man the classrooms right now.

So if you're looking for a job, childcare's looking to hire and we'll do the best we can to pay you the best we can to do it.

- There you go.

All right.

So you have more programs to talk about.

One that I think is more recent, I guess it started last summer, was the Kindergarten Here We Come program.

Which is a workshop.

- [Kristy] Yes.

- So what's the idea there and and how did that work?

- That is a final effort for our families and again, the children to be ready to start kindergarten.

We were incredibly fortunate to get funding from the Escambia Children's Trust to make this program happen.

And it is a workshop where simultaneously parents are being taught what it means to help their child get ready for school, how to incorporate reading routines, how to create opportunities to make decisions, what is Focus, which is the parent portal in the school district.

And then in the next classroom over, the students are learning how to sit still, how to listen for story time, how to line up, how to get along with each other and practicing the academics, counting and numbers.

And these classes are led by teachers in the school district who know it the best.

So our focus is just again, to help them understand what does it mean to get ready for kindergarten?

How to go into a formal school setting and feel confident in what you're going to do.

- It looked like you had a great turnout.

- We had a fantastic turnout.

We had about 20 or so families at each of our workshops.

So we had three workshops last summer.

We're gonna repeat that again this year.

The great thing about this year is we're also offering a Spanish speaking workshop because we know there are a lot of Spanish speaking families in our community and we really want to invite every single family that has a rising kindergartner to come out to these programs because it's for everybody.

- And you mentioned earlier the educator support.

I mean, I think we all know that teachers are not supported nearly enough.

So what are your efforts there in trying to bolster them a little bit?

- We really want to make sure that our teachers tell us what they need.

So whether they are coming out and saying, "Hey, I need headphones for the computers, I need Goldfish for the snacks.

We have a Mardi Gras parade coming up, a fall festival coming up.

We're bringing back chaperones for field trips."

Anything that that they ask for, we can turn either to our budget, to our sponsors or to our volunteers, to help fill those needs.

- So as always, we wanna measure the success, of all these efforts that we're doing.

So you guys, how do you try to measure success?

What are the things that you target and look at to see, what's working, what's not working?

- Well, we do progress monitoring.

This is what they currently call it.

They called it PPK assessments before that, during the PPK years on a beginning, mid and ending point to see how the child progresses.

That's very important.

We also are now using what's called a class assessment tool, which is a class assessment scoring system.

And that's statewide mandated with, in particular our school readiness programs, that actually can result in them getting paid more money per child as well.

The higher they score on the assessment, the more money we're gonna pay them per child in their daily rates.

The class assessment is really assessing the teacher.

Is the teacher meeting our expectations?

Are they engaging with the children effectively enough?

And if the overall score of a particular facility falls below the standard, they may not have a contract next year.

They do get a second try if they don't.

And most of the time they do, because like I said, we spend a lot of time coaching, a lot of time bolstering.

And then if they do get a low score, the first chance out of the barrel, we'll work with them very intensely to make sure they don't fail the second time.

'Cause we don't wanna lose anybody that's doing this work and we want to get there.

So we have a lot of tools in place to actually make sure that quality is as important as actually childcare itself and has to be there.

- And you continue to find good partners, within the community organizations that you can work with, to implement a lot of these things.

So what are some of the future plans?

You guys are already doing a lot in expanding, so what are the hopes?

Where does ReadyKids!

hope to to take this?

- Our hope is to reach every single four-year-old in Escambia County.

The biggest way that we can do that is by getting more volunteers to come out as Reading Pals.

It's 45 to 60 minutes a week, or you can do it bi-weekly with a partner.

And also the opportunity to create sponsorships for just continuing the funding that's happening in our community.

But if we could reach every child, that would be the goal.

- How special is it for you?

Obviously you're passionate about it.

You work for a passionate group there.

When you see the difference it's making in kids, how special is that?

- It's incredibly special.

I am so lucky because I get to be in the schools, different schools every single day all day.

And I mean, the bonds that our volunteers make with their students, the volunteer will come into the classroom and their kid will run up to them.

The entire class will say, "'So and so,' your Reading Pal's here," and it's beautiful because you really get to see the growth that they're making.

You get to see those aha moments, and it's everything I love about my job.

- Awesome.

Kristy, great job.

Thank you.

Thanks for all you do and thanks for joining us.

- Thanks for having us.

- And Bruce, you're gonna hang around.

We got one more segment coming up and we're gonna hear more from you in the third segment as well.

A new source of funding has emerged for early learning programs in Escambia County, and we will talk to the executive director as well as Bruce coming up.

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(bright music) - For any early learning initiative, funding is essential.

There is a new and plentiful source available in the Escambia Children's Trust.

It was approved by voters in late 2020 as an independent special district charged with investing public money for the wellbeing of children.

Joining us is Tammy Greer, the Executive Director of the Escambia Children's Trust and rejoining us Bruce Watson from the Early Coalition.

Thanks for coming back.

And Tammy, thank you for joining us here.

- [Tammy] Thank you.

- All right.

So the, the Escambia Trust.

Tell us how it came about, exactly what it is, and what purpose it serves.

- So the Escambia Children's Trust, is one of, I think there are now 13 children's services councils in the state of Florida.

And they've been around since probably the late forties, was when the first one was formed in Pinellas County.

And there was a lull for many years between the ones that were formed in the eighties and then another batch came around in 2020.

So we were very fortunate to have been voted in by the citizens of Escambia County.

The whole point of having a children's services council in your community is so that you can take that funding and put it towards initiatives that will help improve the wellbeing of the children in the community.

And so that means you have to look at what the needs are, because it's gonna vary from community to community.

So the first thing we did out of the gate, was a comprehensive needs assessment.

And then everything that we do has to hit one of those indicators in that needs assessment, because wellbeing is very broad.

- So what's the funding source, and how much money do you have available to be able to give out?

- So the funding source is property taxes.

And again, it went before the voters of Escambia County.

And so the ordinance allows us to levy one mil, or well up to a half a mil of property taxes.

So that typically comes in around 10 million dollars per year that we would have to fund different programs in the community.

- This has been a long time coming, as you mentioned, it's been around other places for a long time.

And Bruce, is this something that you were passionate about bringing about?

So what was the long road to get this done and how happy are you that we have the trust now?

- Mostly it was a combined effort for many people in the community.

Myself in particular, spent a lot of time hosting a breakfast every year for community leaders and educating on what a children's services council is and what it could do.

And after probably a good six, seven years of effort, we finally found the right people and got enough of the most influential people in the county to understand what we were talking about and agree, why can't we take care of our own?

That's really what it boils down to.

We decide here in Escambia County through the trust, what we're going to do for our children and no one else outside can tell us what to do.

And that is really a great benefit, that is one-of-a-kind in the state of Florida that we can do that.

And so to be one of those counties that has that authority and that ability is amazing.

- And you said one of the first things you did, or the first thing you did was needs assessment.

And I know it's for all children.

Tonight we're talking more about the zero to five age group.

So what were some of the findings that you uncovered looking at the needs assessment?

- Well, we wanted to hit the ground running, because I know everybody is really anxious to see this money flowing because we have a lot of needs in the community as everybody is acutely aware.

So we didn't just start from scratch doing a whole big research project.

We used all of the information that was already available and the different needs assessments that had been done.

And so things naturally fell into buckets.

And one of the big areas that we noticed there's a huge need is in the early childhood arena because it is so important and that sets the stage for the development for the rest of the way...well, through life really.

I started to say "Through your educational journey," but really it's life.

If you don't have that foundation, if your brain doesn't develop appropriately, if you don't have the ability to read before you're in third grade, all of these things put you on a trajectory either to success or sometimes to prison.

So it's super important that we pay attention to early learning opportunities.

- Well, a lot of the numbers you found were deficiencies.

- [Tammy] Absolutely.

- So what were some of the things that were glaring to you that you're gonna try to address?

- Well, the VPK numbers, the participation in VPK, which I know that can be misleading sometimes.

I agree with Bruce.

I don't think it's as bad as it may look on it's surface.

But ultimately we'd like to have every child be exposed to learning before they hit kindergarten.

That feeds into kindergarten readiness.

You want children to have been exposed to a classroom environment, to have been around other kids so that they have the socialization.

You want them to know the basics before they get in there, because otherwise they start out at a deficit.

And so we did find that that was a huge problem in our county.

And then the quality of childcare, because if you put a child into a program that is not a high quality program, not a high functioning program, if it's just babysitting, you can do more harm than good.

So we really want to focus on quality, because that was one of the things that we found too.

For example, outside of the programs that are run by the Naval Air Station, there are only eight Gold Seal programs in our county.

And that is going to become pretty significant if the legislation that is pending right now is passed and there's a child tax credit for people who put their children into a Gold Seal facility.

Well, if we've only got eight in the county, then everybody's gonna be fighting to get their children in there and there are already wait lists at a lot of these places.

- So how do we get there?

How do we get more of those?

- Well... (all laugh) Good question.

- [Bruce] We're working on it.

- We're working on it.

- We definitely are.

- My coaches encourage people to get Gold Seal, because it is a higher standard.

It's better ratios, it is more curriculum based.

You have to rise to a certain level and in doing so, if you are also contracted with the coalition, which they are, you get a 20% rate increase on top of that, which offsets the lower rate, the better ratios because that means fewer children in the classroom.

But we all know the less children in the classroom, the more of the attention they have with the teacher and therefore they get a better educational experience.

And then we in turn make up that difference by giving 'em 20 percent more money per head for that effort to do so.

That balances the whole thing out and they actually make money.

They also get tax credits if they own their buildings and stuff like that off their property taxes.

So there's a lot of incentives to do it.

We just gotta convince our providers here in this county that it's worth the effort and money to invest upfront to get into Gold Seal because it will reap benefits in the long term.

Trust me, it pays for itself and then some.

And more importantly, it pays for our communities benefit because it does a much, much better job in getting children ready to go to school.

- But bottom line, it is alarming, the lack of quality childcare, which is a nationwide issue.

Have you looked at what's going on other places, for some ideas or comparisons?

- We constantly look to, well, first and foremost to the other children's services councils in the state because they've been doing this a lot longer and they have some great programs.

And something that you'll find among all of the children's services councils is that we really look to invest in programs that are evidence-based.

So there's some indication that what they're doing is gonna work.

That doesn't mean that we don't have some room for innovation.

And of course we want to make sure that whatever we bring into the community is what our community needs and that it works the way we need it to.

So we're not gonna just do carbon copies necessarily, but we do absolutely look at what's working in other communities.

And so one of the things that we're looking at, is how can we get more teachers, more of the early childhood development professionals, these educators into these classrooms?

And one of the things that I keep preaching about is that we've got to professionalize early childhood education as a career path.

It is not babysitting, it is more than just childcare.

It really is an opportunity to teach these children and to develop their brains and their minds and their skills so that they're ready for kindergarten, which then makes them ready for elementary school and makes them ready for life.

So we have to really focus on getting the right people in those classrooms.

I mean, that's the first start.

You can't have quality classrooms if you don't have quality educators in there.

And you're not gonna get quality educators in there unless you can pay them appropriately and make sure that their education to get those credentials that they need, not just to make it a Gold Seal facility, but to make them really good, high quality, engaging professional educators.

We've gotta pay them, we've gotta give them the incentives, we've gotta give them the education that they need.

And Bruce has done a fabulous job, doing a lot of this and has gotten some federal funding to help with that but there's not enough.

There's just never enough funding to do what we need to do.

- Kindergarten readiness is one thing we talked about with Bruce earlier, and those numbers are alarming as well.

So when you looked at those numbers in your research, what jumped out at you about that, and how to attack that?

- Well, I think something that really alarms me is that we don't have parents who are wanting to put their kids into early childhood programs.

So that's one thing.

And then I've heard a lot about parent engagement, and there seems to be a perception that some parents just aren't engaging with their children and if they are, they're not engaging appropriately.

And technology has played a huge role in that.

People tend to give their kids a tablet or an iPhone and let them play and they're not talking to them and they're not engaging with them.

The numbers are alarming, and the children are lacking all sorts of skills.

We're also hearing about behavioral issues and mental health issues and just the data is overwhelming.

You should see our needs assessment.

It's huge.

- [Steve] I saw it.

- Yeah, the data points are just, it's just off the chart.

We rank at the bottom of all Florida counties in just about every category when it comes to early childhood education.

And Florida sometimes ranks at the bottom in the United States.

So we're the bottom of the bottom in a lot of categories.

And I don't think it's necessarily anyone's fault.

We just have to change the way that we look at early childhood development and the care of these children.

- Go ahead, Bruce.

- The trust is actually poised though right now, I think, to bring something significant to our community called Help Me Grow.

- [Tammy] Yes.

- And in doing so, provide an additional layer of support, for parents that they've never had before, a resource they can turn to, to ask just simple questions or a resource they can turn to ask those really hard questions like, "My child needs medical care.

Where can I go?

My child has a behavioral issue.

Where with my income level can I actually get the mental health supports and the behavioral supports to make a difference in my child's life?"

I mean, I think we're poised to really make a significant change in what we do in this county and how we help our parents be better parents and more importantly, better educators of their children.

- Yeah.

Help Me Grow is a national program that you're trying to bring here, right?

- Yes, absolutely.

And thank you for that, Bruce.

There has been talk of bringing the Help Me Grow model, which is a national model, and it gets tremendous results.

There's been talk since, I think 2017, is when the community started talking about bringing the Help Me Grow model here, but then the funding dried up.

And so we really want to bring that and if the board approves it on Tuesday, March 14th, we will be issuing an ITB on the 15th, the very next day.

And a piece that Bruce mentioned that I'd like to just elaborate on a little bit, is the parent engagement piece.

Not only are we gonna give them referrals and resources so that they can have support services, but we also want to have a strong parent engagement and parent education piece because sometimes you just don't know what you need to be doing with your children.

I've heard parents actually say, "I didn't know I was supposed to be reading to them.

I didn't know I was supposed to be talking to them."

As crazy as that may sound to some parents, there are parents out there who just don't know that.

You don't get an owner's manual when you have a child.

So you don't know what to do.

And so we want to try to provide that as part of this Help Me Grow initiative as well.

- And that ties in with really with all the things we're talking about tonight, 'cause SCI, a big part of them is getting that knowledge out there.

It's not all innate.

You have to be shown the ways to maximize your children's development.

So you're also gonna be handing out different funding and you've already handed out some funding.

So who are some of the entities that you've given some funds to so far?

- Well, pleased to say, some of it went to the Early Learning Coalition.

We gave them some funding to provide a match to some of the funding that they already get to help leverage that because we really do want to invest, to help pull down more resources from the state and the federal government anywhere that we can.

We currently have 25 active contracts that are in different stages and we funded our out-of-school time initiative most recently.

So that is wonderful.

And some of those programs are gonna serve the early childhood population as well.

So we have funded large agencies like Children's Home Society and we have funded some of the smaller organizations like the Pensacola Little Theatre.

And then the James B. Washington Education and Sports Program.

The City of Pensacola, we had a competitive process and those programs rose to the top.

And so we've got a great variety of programs, so I'm super happy about that.

- [Steve] ReadyKids!

as well.

- ReadyKids!

Oh, yes.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention them.

Yes, absolutely.

ReadyKids!

was one of the first programs that we funded.

We did a tiny grant project over the summer of 2022.

It was our first funding initiative to do a kindergarten, summer bridge.

Just a short introductory project to get some kids at least introduced to the classroom and to pull their parents in.

And ReadyKids!

did a wonderful job with that.

So we were very, very pleased.

It was a small program, but it did a wonderful service for those parents and kids that were involved.

- I'd like to add kudos to the fact I know of no other children's services council that did that many contracts in what is effectively their first year.

- Thank you.

- It's not easy 'cause you had to do the research and you're doing due diligence on this, you're not just handing it out.

You have to make sure it's right.

How important are the partnerships?

'Cause obviously you guys work together, everybody we've had here tonight, and many other groups as well.

Bruce, how important is that to making this work?

Everybody working in concert?

- Oh, it's extremely important.

I'm happy to say we have a very effective interplay between us.

By statute, Tammy is on my board of directors, and so she hears what our needs are.

She experiences firsthand what we need and what we're doing.

And some of her other board members are also on the Early Learning Coalition's board.

And you've heard about the relationships we had with ReadyKids!

all those things.

So just about all of us that are playing in or operating in the early learning world all have interfaces with it.

I've done several projects over the years with Studer and those things will not end.

We all work together because we all have the same goal, get our children ready for school, make sure they're emotionally and physically ready to be adults someday.

And be productive members of our society for our economy, for the good of all of us.

And so we have a safe and secure place to raise our own children, and for them to raise their children someday.

- How optimistic are you that we can move the needle here?

- Oh my gosh, I'm incredibly optimistic.

Now, I don't want anybody to think that that's gonna happen overnight.

People have already asked me, "Why aren't you getting more money out?

It's been two years."

Well, the first year we had to levy the taxes and collect the taxes and then they couldn't hire staff.

The board couldn't hire me until they had funding in place.

And so it took a minute to get it off the ground.

But I think that what we'll see as year over year, we're gonna continue to see some outcomes.

Everything that we invest in, we're looking for evidence that it's gonna work and for outcomes that are gonna address all those indicators that were in that needs assessment.

That's the baseline for what we're doing.

And so I would like to add that we are about to embark on, I hope, our strategic plan for the next three years.

And we're gonna be asking for community input.

To your point about partnerships, we are going to be asking all of the stakeholders, and by stakeholders I mean all of the agencies that work in the child development space and parents, and community leaders, business leaders, everybody.

We want input because we know what the needs are.

We know how much funding we have, which sounds like a lot.

But when you start looking at the problems that we have, it goes very quickly.

And so I just wanna let everybody know that we're about to start that and we would love to have lots of community input.

- All right, we'll look forward to that.

Well, thank both of you for all you do, and thanks for joining us here tonight.

- Thank you for the opportunity.

- Thank you.

- All right, I'd also like to thank my earlier guests, Frency Moore and Dante Shepherd from SCI, and Kristy Craig from ReadyKids!

If you want to get involved in making a difference on early learning, reach out to any of these organizations to see how you can help.

Thanks for watching.

(bright music)