Each year hundreds of New Haveners are born to teen mothers or without prenatal care. They start school behind the ball, not yet ready to learn. More than 100 people gathered at Conte-West Hills School to come up with a plan to turn that around.
The people present at Wednesday night’s meeting of the New Haven School Readiness Council’s planning task force included day care providers, pediatricians, parents, and early childhood teachers.
They knew they face challenges captured in daunting statistics: Of the approximately 2,000 kids born every year in the city, 275 are born to teen mothers; 500 are born to mothers who receive inadequate prenatal care, and about 220 have low birth weight. Also, when they are ready to enter school, only a third or so have the skills needed for kindergarten-level literacy. And it doesn’t get a whole lot better by third grade, where, according to 2006 statistics, only 33.2 percent scored proficient or above on a standardized reading test.
Their idea is to involve all sectors of the community, from parents to professionals, and come up with a plan for action. That plan will go to the mayor and superintendent of schools, who appoint the council, and they will implement strategies agreed upon.
For example, suggested teacher Marilyn Calderon, “We absolutely have to increase pre-school education teachers’ salaries. It’s critical; otherwise we won’t be able to keep them in the profession. And teachers are central.”
However, according to Jennifer McGrady Heath, a member of the council from United Way (standing with council Chairman Robert Windom), “It’s important to remember that by readiness we mean a great deal more than knowing letters and numbers. It’s as much about a child being healthy and excited about learning. It’s about a child living in a family situation that allows and promotes learning. It’s about attention to behavioral issues; it’s about dental care, the whole gamut.”
Windom, a pediatrician with the Hill Health Center, said that the most recent early childhood plan, initiated by the mayor in 2002 and called Best Beginnings, has resulted in many improvements. Among those he pointed to were two pre‑K classrooms in every new New Haven School, significant expansion of Head Start, a curriculum for parents, and professional development for teachers so that in every early childhood classroom there is now, he said, at least one person who has earned a CDA, or childhood development associate credential, or higher.
“Still, he said, we need to do better. The landscape has changed. Even with the good support we have built up over the last five years, we have far too many kids not ready to enter school. And there is new money out there.”
That new money is indeed one of the reasons the task force has been assembled, not only in New Haven but across the state, according to Gwen Samuel, an early care and education organizer with the statewide Connecticut Parent Power. The organization’s goal is to galvanize parents statewide on the crucial role of early childhood, and for her New Haven is a priority district. “Early childhood education,” she said, “has received 50 to 60 million new dollars in the state budget. They know it’s important in Hartford, and a lot of people in this room went up there to help get it. But there was skepticism. The politicians said, in effect, we gave you a lot of money last time, and where are the results? Not so great? You had better measure it this time.’ Now they are saying, ‘You must be accountable for how you use this money.’
“That’s what this gathering is about, the new phrase, Results Based Accountability. We determine the results we want, parents and providers and professionals buy in, and we measure this time how we achieve it. Bridgeport and Hartford have already gone through this process, and this is the beginning here.”
Dividing the participants into three groups to brainstorm on health, family resources and support, and what changes are needed in early care and education programs, facilitators elicited a wide range of problems and proposed remedies. Here’s a sampling:
John Leventhal, a pediatrician with the Yale-New Haven Children’s Hospital, said that one way to address the teen pregnancy issue is to allow the school-based health clinics to give out birth control pills. “It’s odd,” he said, “they can provide full counseling and even condoms, but no birth control pills. It would be controversial, but that’s one way to cut down on teen pregnancies.” The 275 births to teens, or 14% of the total annual births, is twice the state average.
Addressing developmental problems early was seen as another challenge. But how do you do that, especially with a mother who is an older child herself, or who might herself be developmentally disabled? “There are ways,” said Nancy Close (seated beside Leventhal), an assistant professor at the Yale Child Study Center’s child development unit. “There is no babbling, for example. Or there is insufficient reaching out, eye contact.”
“But,” said Claudia McNeil, the mental health and disabilities coordinator of the New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) Head Start programs, “many of our parents have great fear of even the term ‘mental health.’ We’ve given them benchmarks for mental health development, but many are not interested. We have to train them, and the staff more.”
Windom concurred that a lot had to do with training the parents, just to change patterns. “When we opened Hill Health Center, for example,” he said, “parents in the area did not automatically stop going to the emergency room. It took our sending outreach workers to the community. It took a bridging effort.”
Those parents need to include fathers, said Keith Young, who works as the Male Involvement Coordinator at the NHPS Head Start programs. “A lot of kids live without their fathers, but the fathers want to be involved. Here’s a simple thing that can be done. At school registration, let two addresses be given, so that information and report cards and such can be sent to both.
“I have custody of my son, and I tell you the information is still sent only to his mother, and I don’t get along with her! In fact, I’d say at this point that the entire environment of early child care is really not father-friendly. That has to change.”
Kim McCoy, who has two kids in pre‑K and one senior at Wilbur Cross, added that there are all kinds of new challenges. “You have all these grandparents raising kids now. And some of the grandparents are about 36 years old themselves. There are some who go out and party with their kids. We have to adjust and realign our resources to these new situations,” she said.
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However, Amos Smith of the Community Action Agency (pictured with New Haven Diaper Bank’s Joanne Goldblum), cautioned that too much burden is put on the school itself to accomplish these ends
p(clear). “The school’s job should be to educate. For the last decades we’ve gone on this tangent of putting too great a burden on the schools for behavior modification, when that has to come from a whole larger attitude in the home and the community. The school can’t do it alone. The teacher can’t squeeze it into 42 minutes. That’s not fair, and even though the money is driving the testing and such attitudes, we need to find a level of partnership, synergy, with parents and families. We need to approach this in a whole new way.”
p(clear). That, of course, was exactly what this first planning session was about. The various rooms were percolating with ideas about establishing academies for parents. And Keith Young suggested that instead of a liquor store being on every corner, why shouldn’t there be a studio where you can prepare for your G.E.D. on every corner.
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Over in another room, Marilyn Calderon (pictured) was suggesting that some families need to get their kids into day care while they are still in diapers, and the regulation against that should be re-considered.
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Meanwhile Lorraine DeLuz, who runs the Student Parenting Family Services for teenage moms at Wilbur Cross, stood in front of the arrays of suggestions that were filling up the bulletin boards at the Conte West Hills cafeteria.
p(clear). “I have one too, “she said. “I just graduated 12 teens. Eight of them have gotten into college but they can’t go because they can’t secure money to pay for day care, and they are not living in family situations where their mothers can help them. You understand. So, if they go to work at McDonald’s that would make them eligible for some state supported day care. But going to college, no support. Now does that make any sense?”
p(clear). The next meeting of the planning task force, to which any concerned New Havener is invited, will be on August 8 at 5:30, with location to be announced. The contact for information is Jim Farnam, tel #772‑2050.