Karen West Head Start expands to early childhood

The Karen West Head Start school has added three early childhood classes in response to growing demand.

The facility will still accept one classroom of 3 to 5 year olds. However, the majority of the students are now under 3 years old.

“To meet the needs of the community, we’ve switched into early head start, which is 0-to-3 year olds rather than 3-to-5 year olds,” Kelly Johnson, parent and family community engagement, said. “We’ve never had an early head start on this side of town. It’s always been on the north end of town. A lot our families come from the south side of Poplar Bluff so we thought this would be the best place to put our new early head start.”

The facility will be able to serve 31 students, 24 early head start and 17 head start. Students receive breakfast, lunch and snack while at school.

Because the Karen West Head Start is federally funded, it is free to parents and designed to help low income families who would otherwise struggle with child care.

“Head start is to get parents and children, the whole family, ready for kindergarten,” Johnson said. “Head start has a whole family approach. We believe that children won’t be ready unless the entire family is ready.”

Johnson said the goal is to always be able to meet the needs of the community. More head starts are making the move to be early head starts because the public preschools have been taking on more of the need for the 3-to-5 year old students.

“The need is becoming greater and greater for early head start,” she said.

Students attend the head start year round with curriculum focused on the age group. Early childhood is more individualized with meeting the needs of the students and the families, whereas the head start students start being taught school readiness goals such as walking in a line and taking turns, Education Manager Kelli Jones said.

“We focus on social and emotional,” Jones said. “We focus on cognitive, fine motor, gross motor. Just overall development of the kid.”

One of the challenges the head start faces is the idea that the students aren’t ready for school, Johnson said. Children start learning as soon as they’re born, she said.

“Getting the parents to understand that we’re a school, we teach them, is probably our greatest difficulty,” she said. “When the time says that 8 o’clock is the start time then we expect them to be here at 8 o’clock. We expect them to be picked up at 3 o’clock. Just to get those parents ready for whenever the public school expects them to do the same.

The head start teachers can have up to five years with a student in order to help get them ready for kindergarten.

All of the teachers at the head start have degrees and are given the opportunity to receive their CDA. While at the head start, diapers, wipes, blankets and other necessities are provided.

The head start is currently full, but Johnson said it’s good for them to have people on the waiting list because it can help them understand what need it there and can help fill a space faster if one opens.