The Indian River Mall was awash in a sea of eager young faces, as families streamed in for an inaugural Pre-K Party and Kindergarten Round-Up last Saturday, hosted by the Moonshot Moment Kindergarten Readiness Collaborative.
Roughly 50 community partners participated in the four-hour event, setting up booths from Macy’s all the way down to Zales Jewelers to deliver a wide range of information on healthcare, pre-schools, after-school and summer activities, and a host of services offered by various nonprofit agencies. There were also free vision and dental screenings, plenty of children’s activity tables and free giveaways. Every child who registered for kindergarten was also given a T-shirt identifying them as the “Class of 2029.”
“They were lined up and waiting at the door at 9 o’clock this morning,” said Hope Woodhouse, who serves on the Children’s Services Advisory, Kindergarten Readiness Collaborative and John’s Island Community Service League boards. She explained that parents were registering their children with the School District of Indian River County for kindergarten, pre-school and the Voluntary Pre-K Summer Transition Enrichment (VPK STEP) Program for VPK children entering kindergarten at Title 1 schools.
“The summer extension program was funded by the John’s Island Community Service League last year and the county has picked up some of it. It’s a six-week program to make sure the kids are ready for school in the fall. It’s taught by school district teachers, so they’re college-educated teachers; it’s high quality,” said Woodhouse. “The Kindergarten Collaborative is all about getting kids ready for kindergarten. About 100 kids each year aren’t even registered when their parents drop them off at school the first day.”
The Kindergarten Readiness Collaborative was largely funded its first year by John’s Island resident Marlynn Scully. “She’s the Godmother of the program,” said Woodhouse.
“She’s the Fairy Godmother, because it’s magical!” added Marie O’Brien, community outreach director for The Learning Alliance.
“This is so exciting. We had no idea that this would work,” said Scully. “The most important thing is that it will help the school district. Now at least they’ll know what to expect in September. This was so successful that somebody has already asked what time they need to show up next year!”
“We have several pre-schools doing different performances. Aren’t they super cute?” said KRC Coordinator Shannon Maitland, watching as adorable youngsters sang for the considerably larger than expected crowd. “We were only expecting between 400 and 500 people total. This is the first time we’ve planned this event, and they were lined up before we even opened.”
A lot of groups came together to put this on,” said Nate Bruckner, director of impact at the United Way, which is providing “incubation space” to KRC staff. “This is way beyond our expectations.”
Having children kindergarten ready is all part of the Moonshot Moment goal of reaching 90 percent literacy by third grade. More than 40 social service organizations, foundations, funders and child care providers are involved in the Kindergarten Readiness Collaborative, which supports a family-centered, high quality early childhood development system so that all Indian River County children arrive to kindergarten “prepared across the five critical domains: social/emotional, physical health and well-being, cognitive, communication and adaptive learning.”
