The second floor of the Jon B. Morgan Osceola County Courthouse is a bustling one — people coming and going all through the business day to pay traffic fines, get passports and marriage licenses and procure copies of other legal documents.
Some trips there are smooth and swift, and others take some time. That can be challenging for parents who need to bring their young children along with them, and have a hard time keeping them entertained.
The Osceola Clerk of Court and Comptroller’s Office has provided those busy parents some help.
Mocki’s Education Station, an area of the Public Information office, debuted Tuesday morning. It comes with a shelf full of children’s books donated by the Osceola Library system, a table for coloring and an Osceola Reads station, where kids can playing enriching reading and learning games on an app that they can later sign into on a mobile device and keep the learning going.
“The idea behind this was, well, sometimes you come to the courthouse without everything prepared,” said Tyler Winik, Clerk and Comptroller’s Office Director of Government and Public Affairs. “The vision was to be able to provide stimulus, even though it’s modest, so that our younger audience would feel like there’s something for them.
Clerk of Court and Comptroller Kelvin Soto called Tuesday’s debut “A special occasion.”
“The gesture may not be grand, but these small gestures done consistently, with the help of great community partners, send a great message to the community that we’re here to help and provide excellent customer service,” he said. “If you have to come to the Courthouse for business, please, bring your child, and have them read and learn while they’re here.
The “tech” piece of the area is the Osceola Reads station. It uses the Footsteps2Brilliance app funded by the Osceola County School District that is able to track a student’s progress if they create a login (at OsceolaReads. com) and use the program, either at the Courthouse, and one of eight other Osceola County public locations like libraries and hospitals, or on their own mobile device like a tablet or phone.
