
DATE: Monday, May 5, 1997                   TAG: 9705050039

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY ELIZABETH SIMPSON, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:  125 lines

STUDY PUSHES FOR PRESCHOOLS

The 3- and 4-year-old children at the Berkley-Campostella Early Childhood Education Center dress in crisp white shirts and navy-blue skirts and pants.

They learn manners at lunch tables set with china and cutlery instead of disposable plates. And they master their ABCs and numbers from teachers and aides who often come from their own neighborhoods.

The center is just the type of place being recommended in a national study released today that challenges schools to do a better job in educating children in poor communities.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation's annual ``Kids Count'' study says that children in the nation's low-income neighborhoods too often get the worst educations - primarily because of the challenges the children bring to school with them and because of funding differences between poor and affluent districts. Schools need major reform, the study concluded, if the nation is serious about preventing more students from falling behind or dropping out all together.

The study recommends that communities offer more preschool experiences, make schools smaller and more intimate, and better involve families in their children's schools.

The Berkley-Campostella center, which stands hard against the Diggs Town public housing community, fits the bill for the study's recommendations, but most areas - rich or poor - don't have such a place.

The Kids Count study found that 42 percent of 3- to 5-year-old children in Virginia were not enrolled in either nursery school or kindergarten in 1993. That's slightly higher than the national rate of 40 percent. Virginia ranked 29th among the 50 states in preschool enrollment.

Those numbers often reflect alack of opportunity rather than a lack of interest.

The Berkley-Campostella center, for instance, has a waiting list. So do two other early childhood programs that serve at-risk children in South Hampton Roads: Head Start, a federally funded program, has a waiting list of more than 700 children in South Hampton Roads. And Early Discoveries - a state-funded preschool program that educates at-risk 4-year-olds in Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Portsmouth and Suffolk - also has more students than can be served.

Virginia Beach resident Brenda Jones has tried to get her 4-year-old son, Edward, into Head Start for two years but is still waiting for a spot to open up for him.

``I hope and pray he gets in this year. I think he could learn to get along with kids his own age better, learn his ABCs. I try to teach him, but he'd learn better with other kids.''

The Kids Count study also tracked competency levels and found that among Virginia's fourth-graders, 43 percent scored below the basic reading level for their grade in 1994, and 38 percent scored below the basic mathematics level in 1996.

The study's authors said more children need to be reached at earlier ages to improve those numbers. ``There's a need to get kids school-ready,'' said William O'Hare, the Kids Count coordinator. ``More so in poor communities than any other.''

The dropout rate for children in low-income families is five times as high as that for kids in more affluent families, according to the study - a figure that can best be combated in the hallways of a community's schools, the study's authors say.

``It's hard to find a public institution that's more central to the development of a child,'' O'Hare said.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation is a private, charitable organization that tracks the plight of disadvantaged children in the United States.

The study also recommends:

Creating ways to hold administrators, teachers and parents more accountable for the outcome of students.

Decentralizing authority and resources.

Developing standards in curriculum, instruction and assessment.

Making education part of a larger community commitment to healthy youth and families.

Getting families more involved in schools.

The Berkley-Campostella center has made family participation one of its highest priorities since the Norfolk school district opened it in 1991.

The parents of its 224 students, most of whom live in Diggs Town and Oakleaf public housing communities, are not strangers to the brick building on Cypress Street.

Many of them take adult-education classes in the same building, or get services from a public health clinic and social services office located on site. They also help out in classrooms, in the library, on field trips. A ``Men on the Move'' group brings community men into classrooms to provide positive male role models for the children.

And whenever she can, Principal Cheryl Bunch hires people from the community to work at the center.

``When children see their parents coming to school, they feel that education is something they will be able to use,'' Bunch said. ``Having parents involved here is extremely important.''

When Lisa Haynes' son, Malcolm, started coming to the Berkley-Campostella school in 1991, she started coming, too.

She wanted to keep an eye on her son, who was 3 at the time and is 8 now.

She started doing volunteer work there, and within a few months she had a job as a teacher's aide. She's worked there ever since, and is attending Norfolk State University to pursue more early childhood education.

She says two of the key recommendations of the Kids Count study - early childhood classes and family participation - have made all the difference for her son and herself.

``The more involved you get in your child's school, the more secure you feel,'' Haynes said. ``Parents miss out if they don't go to their children's classroom.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by MOTOYA NAKAMURA/The Virginian-Pilot

Jan Lenherr, a teacher at Norfolk's Berkley-Campostella Early

Childhood Education Center, reads a book to her class of

3-year-olds. The center opened in 1991; most of its 224 students

live in the nearby Diggs Town and Oakleaf public housing

communities.

THE FINDINGS: A national study concludes that schools need major

reforms, since children from poor areas too often get the worst

educations.

FACT: The dropout rate for children in low-income families is five

times higher than that for kids from affluent families.

THE RECOMMENDATIONS: Communities should offer more preschool

experiences, make schools smaller, and get families involved.