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Date: 7/25/2022
LUDLOW – During the Ludlow School Committee’s July 19 meeting, the committee received a presentation about the district’s Pathways for Parents Program, which helps prepare young children for kindergarten while also providing educational resources and referrals to families.
Director of Curriculum and Instruction Dr. Erica Faginski-Stark said the Pathways for Parents Program is funded through three different grants. The three grants are a Coordinated Family and Community Engagement grant for $103,645, a Parent Child+ grant for $58,262 and a private extension grant worth $21,000.
“We are here to share the great things that are happening for children from birth to age 8, which helps us to get all of our incoming kindergarten students ready and give the parents some opportunities in their local community,” she said.
Through the Pathways for Parents Program, the district services families in eight communities including Ludlow, Hampden, Wilbraham, East Longmeadow, Longmeadow, Southwick, Tolland and Granville.
One group in town Program Coordinator Kelly Castor said the program works with is the Ludlow Area Adult Learning Center.
“They are an entry point for one of our grants in terms of finding families that need support in terms of ESL [English as a Second Language],” she said.
Along with the learning center, Castor added that the Pathways program also partners with libraries in its communities and the Department of Children and Families.
Castor said the program currently serves 31 families, half of whom are from Ludlow. The program also works directly with childcare centers in the area.
“Right now, we are in one childcare that has 10 children in it, and then later in the fall we will be taking on two additional ones. That will be to work on teaching the childcares early education resources and trying to make sure the kiddos are connected to the services they need to be,” Castor said.
With the ongoing formula shortage across the country, Castor said the program is also working to provide families with connections to try to get formula.
Faginski-Stark said the program works with both schools and other members of the community in an effort to prepare students for school.
“We also couple that with [East Street School Principal] Tom Welch’s program for kindergarten enrollment. Kids were able to take a bus ride and meet key staff. That has been a real nice connection, we weren’t able to do it during COVID [-19], but we have been working on that and including the Ludlow Boys and Girls Club and other stakeholders, so really trying to bridge everyone together,” she said.
Through a survey about the program, Castor said parents understood more about their children as they were getting ready to head into kindergarten.
“One percent of participants understood more about their child’s development as a result of the programs we are offering and 90.9 percent of participants understood their child’s social-emotional needs more as a result of these programs,” she said.
Castor said the program had to shift to online activities as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Some of the things that we did is we offered virtual groups, we did Facebook Lives, we did videos, Zooms and we provided materials for families to pick up at libraries and then work with us. Additionally, as families were at home with their children more, they were observing more things, so our referrals increased for that,” she said.
Castor detailed the different referral services the program offers to children and families.
“Typically, our biggest referral source we are offering families is child development followed by basic needs, developmental and then also home and childcare,” she said.
Castor said that in terms of child development referrals 30 percent are to early intervention agencies and 20 percent of the families are connected with special education services.
Recapping the most recent month of programs, Castor said May was a busy month.
“We provided 61 programs to our communities, 32 were virtual groups, 422 families participated in outdoor activities, 24 materials were distributed to families and 241 families participated in story times,” she said.
As part of one of the grants, Castor said the district participated in a needs assessment to figure out what kind of intervention is needed at an early age.
“It works with all of our towns, but it really encompassed what is going on in Ludlow, the ESL population and stuff like that. What we found is we are not able to connect with some of these people right away, we saw this grant as a great opportunity to capitalize on that,” she said.
After the presentation, committee Vice Chair Jeffrey Laing noted the importance of early intervention and preparing students for school.
“It’s important that we get the children the services they need as early as possible, I think we all understand that that’s a crucial time to understand what they need,” he said.
For more information about the program, families can check out the Pathways for Parents Facebook page or website which is https://sites.google.com/ludlowps.org/pathways-for-parents/home.
The Ludlow School Committee next meets on Aug. 23 and coverage of that meeting will appear in the Sept. 1 edition of The Reminder.