Merced County expands focus on pre-preschool years

Skylights beam down on the low-slung architecture of this room designed for little ones. At one end, babies nap in cribs or rock in laps. Their cribs share half-wall space with a wooden kitchen, bright plastic pans ready for the toddlers of neighboring classroom 2. Art supplies and easels stock the next space, welcoming 3- or nearly 3-year-olds to create, or enjoy a picture book.

“Here, it’s all about the babies,” said Merced County Head Start director Linda Kaercher, pointing to a table so low the adults have to sit in sling-back chairs on the ground. “There are no high chairs. They feed on laps,” she said, which is better for the infants.

The stretch from birth to 3 years old is marked in a grid of unstained pine mini-walls and waist-high gates at the Merced County Early Head Start program housed at the former Castle Air Force Base.

Down the hall, 120 4- to 5-year-olds in traditional Head Start sort and count, getting ready for the leap to big-kid school that for most will happen in the fall.

But it’s the tykes and toddlers leading the new wave, 15 tiny pioneers of educational theory and brain research that says the first years matter too much to lose a minute.

“It’s a whole new culture,” Kaercher said. The push to give extra help from the cradle on has gained ground, and funding. Early Head Start programs are expanding in Merced and Stanislaus counties thanks to grants for early learning.

Merced County has a particular focus on the youngest children, as one of 16 California counties picked to participate in a federal Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge Grant to develop a quality rating system for child care programs.

The Merced County Office of Education and First 5 Merced County head up the 31/2-year grant, called Quality Counts, Merced County. At the advisory group’s February meeting, a roundtable discussion touched on the impact of stressful environments on very young children and how to explain to parents what makes a quality preschool.

“Parents ask me, ‘Where are the worksheets?’ Early education is not about worksheets,” said Christie Hendricks, MCOE assistant superintendent for early education.

“Learning actually occurs through discovery, not through what you tell them,” Kaercher agreed.

Quality Counts, Merced County, works with Head Start, six Merced County school districts, the Stanislaus County Office of Education, Mariposa County First 5 Preschool Programs and 17 family child care providers.

Maria Gutierrez is one of those providers. Her Livingston home opens at 5 a.m. each day, so families working in the fields can drop off early, and she cares for youngsters until 5 p.m. Children with special needs mix in with the rest.

Gutierrez was a teacher, but switched to early child care to stay home with her growing family. “I realized I’d be paying $70 a day to have someone else watch my kids,” she said. Cost aside, it did not feel right, she added. “There’ll never be someone to replace Mom.”

A room for preschool art, blocks and creative play faces the entry. A stack of napping cots stands in the living room. A play castle, kiddie bench and trikes stand ready for free time in the back yard. Everywhere are signs, in Spanish and English, laying out schedules and what goes where.

As an Early Head Start home, she has to comply with hundreds of federal guidelines. The latest was a ban on push pins, Gutierrez noted, as she picked up a paper that stubbornly refused to stay taped to a cork board. A grid of daily lesson plans drives the routine. But the day flows without bells or lining up.

“We do things family style. The majority, I consider them a family because I’ve had them so long,” she said. Many arrive with siblings, or an older brother or sister may arrive later in the day for after-school time.

Those family ties help children adapt, said Rosa Barragan, Merced County resource and referral supervisor. “They’re better able to help them adjust,” she said. “The beauty of family child care is that smaller environment. There’s more one on one.”

Merced County serves 239 children in family child care homes. Like the Head Start centers, home-based care includes visits to and arranging services the families, seen as essential to keep the child’s head start going after preschool ends.

“Working with the family helps them to support the child throughout the developmental process,” Barragan said.

This story was originally published March 27, 2015 at 10:00 AM with the headline "Merced County expands focus on pre-preschool years."