OGDEN — Happy sounds emanate from the preschool room at Canyon View Elementary. Young children shout out colors and raise their hands to answer other questions as they gather around their preschool teachers to talk about their lesson for the day. Brightly colored students’ art projects hang from the ceiling and everyone is happy — teachers included.
It’s a regular Friday afternoon at the school, which houses special needs students and one of the five preschools in the Weber School District. Things have changed quite a bit from last year’s picture of preschool in the district and changed for the better.
About a year and a half ago the district received funding from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act and decided it would use that money to re-vamp the preschool program in the district, said Orvil Stokes, director of early intervention and preschool programs in the district. He pulled together
a stakeholder group made up of teachers, administrators and therapy staff to create a program that would better serve the needs of the children.
In their discussion they found they wanted to work harder to meet individual needs of the children; reduce the number of sites — the district had been running 10 preschool sites and teachers felt isolated; look at creating preschools that high school students could work with; and increase ways to mainstream children with disabilities.
Funding was used to build two brand new preschool sites at Bonneville High School and Midland Elementary and philosophies started to change about how to work things for the students. The new preschools opened this year — with the Bonneville High School preschool serving as a daycare and child development program for high school students. The Midland preschool is used for students that qualify for financial assistance. Midland is a Title I school, so that philosophy is being used for the preschool as well.
The other three sites — Canyon View, Green Acres and Valley elementaries — are preschool sites for children that may have development delays.
“It has been difficult,” Stokes said of getting the programs running this year. Now things are starting to click and work really well and the teachers and students are enjoying the fruits of their labor. A three-tier model of instruction has been set up and preschool classes are categorized into three categories with the level 3 class having the highest degree of special needs children and level 2 and level 1 having decreasing needs. Stokes said it has worked well to have the levels because students can move between the levels when appropriate.
Classes were also made smaller and more individual classes were added at fewer sites, something the teachers love. “I love the class sizes being smaller because we are able to meet their needs better,” said Tina Bowen, head teacher at Canyon View. She also enjoys that the teachers are more consolidated, making it easier for them to collaborate and work one-on-one with the kids. “Everything is in the same place,” she said.
Teacher Karen Turley also likes the collaboration with Bowen. “We are a good team,” she said. The speech pathologist also is more available because she has fewer sites to visit. Bowen said many of the development delayed problems are a result of speech issues, so it is nice to have the speech teacher more at their disposal.
Stokes is now working to get the word out to parents about early intervention programs in the district for children birth to 3 years old. He said there are many free programs offered within the district that are invaluable for parents of developmentally delayed children. He noted that many parents don’t know where to turn or what to do when a family member, friend or doctor tells them their child may have problems and that the school district can help out. He said many times they can work out their issues before they even reach preschool age and they can be mainstreamed by kindergarten.
He also thinks the changes to the preschools will also aid in getting many children ready to be mainstream into kindergarten classes as well.
“That is one of our goals,” Stokes said.
Right now the district serves just over 300 preschoolers and about 314 are in the early intervention program, but those numbers can grow, because he wants to make sure all children that need the help can get the help they need. The services are free for the developmentally delayed students, but there is a charge for the daycare programs at Bonneville High School. For more information on programs the district offers contact Stokes’ office at 801-476-5460.
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