“Our VPK programs are the key to our future success of our kids,” said school board member Susan Duval during the 10/04/16 informal meeting of the school board. She is interested in seeing a comparison among children who have attended VPK and those who have not, including those who were on a waiting list but were not able to attend VPK.
That data had been captured previously and sent to the Department of Education, but there is no directive to forward the information any longer, so district staff will be compiling the data for the school board. The desired outcome is for the district to show a direct correlation between superior performance of kindergarten children coming out of VPK programs as opposed to those who had no pre-Kindergarten instruction.
If so, then a VPK plank will likely be added to the legislative platform submitted to the Florida School Board Association (FSBA). Superintendent Lori Romano believes it should be added anyway based upon data from previous years. VPK has been shown to be beneficial, she said, especially for those in lower socio-economic households and English language learners.
Duval would like that information to be even more specific, identifying the programs that are actually preparing the children for Kindergarten, and those that are not. Additionally, Duval is concerned with the children whose parents do not even sign them up.
Board member Beth Narverud stated some of that is being tracked by the Early Learning Coalition (ELC) under the Sunshine Stars initiative, a rating system for high quality early learning programs. Since VPK is voluntary, Narverud stated that one of the hurdles faced by ELC is convincing parents that they are not “shirking their responsibility” by sending their children to VPK. Narverud agrees that Duval’s suggestion would be helpful for ELC as well.
James Farrelly, Executive Director of ELC, and Romano are proposing model centers as a pilot program. Funding will be an issue, which could be accessed through grants.
“Those early learning blocks are such a strong foundation,” Narverud said, and believes that VPK needs to be part of the legislative platform. The FSBA Legislative Committee Meeting will be held 10/27/16 at the Clearwater Campus of Pinellas Technical College.