Update: The Early Learning Coalition welcomes the community to the ribbon cutting of its newest Early LearnHub in partnership with AdventHealth on Saturday from 9 a.m. to noon at the AdventHealth ER at Partin Settlement Road and U.S. Highway 192. It will be the 13th such early learning experience location in Osceola County, providing play-based learning for children while families wait for their health services appointments.
Scientists who study child development say that 85% of a human’s brain is developed by age 4.
But … traditional American schooling does not begin until the year a child turns 6.
Hence the need for voluntary prekindergarten— or the familiar VPK program, for short.
The program is free, and the Early Learning Coalition of Osceola County can help parents find a host location, be it at a faith-based center, through the school system or, in many cases, the same day-care center children are attending while parents are at work. But, since a day care is full of centers and playtime things, it’s not just a babysitting service.
Amanda Kelkenberg, CEO of the Early Learning Coalition, wants families to know that VPK puts the “kindergarten” in voluntary prekindergarten. And so the ELC has launched a new outreach campaign, More Than”, which aims to shift the public perception of early child care centers, and take a deeper look at the benefits of VPK.
“The decision to send kids to child care isn’t always to access the VPK program, it’s just a healthy and safe place for them to be while parents work,” Kelkenberg said. “The concept is to break down any misconception, and even some fears, which could lead to higher (VPK) enrollment numbers.”
She said that in Osceola County, 67% of VPK-aged students are enrolled, and that the program still hasn’t fully recovered from the COVID effect. But, the county has space to enroll all students. And the ELC, the enrollment agency for Osceola’s VPK program, can help. Aside from connecting families to programs, it monitors VPK programs for compliance with state statutes.
“It should be a community priority to provide a healthy trajectory in life,” Kelkenberg said. “We can’t wait for third grade (when state testing begins).
“Parents go to work and need a place for their children to be safe and cared for. When the state looks at kindergartenreadiness rates, children who attend VPK … the data shows the outcomes are higher than children who don’t attend. The misconception about this program is that these kids just play all day. All of our registered programs are credentialed.”
Ivette Mendez, an ELC learning educator in Kissimmee, said the skills taught in VPK reach far past “learning ABCs and 123s.”
“They are collaborating on projects at a higher skill level than most children their age. They are able to blend words together, and a lot of them are reading,” she said. “We have one of our early learning students who is already reading at a firstgrade reading level, which I’m so proud of.”
Mendez is a part of that closely monitored program for progress monitoring and accountability as well as health and safety, Kelkenberg said.
“Those teachers go through assessment and minimum quality standards to make sure the students get their standards of learning to better assure kindergarten readiness,” Kelkenberg said. “So it’s much more than the healthy and safe space. A lot of families don’t know that it’s a really great year, and that we’re in this together.
