Michelle McAllister, a Maize parent and head coordinator of Parents As Teachers put her kids through this program and saw the impact it made on them. She then decided that being a part of this developmental collaboration was important to her because she was part of helping kids grow.
Parents as Teachers is a free community organization for children ages newborn to five that helps build the developmental skills they need in order to be ready for early childhood education. By providing home visits from maize educators, parents are presented with resources to improve their child’s speech, help with social and emotional needs, provide hearing and vision tests, and help kick start early academic concepts.
“We recently had a twenty four month old that enrolled in our program and he was a little behind in language,” McAllister said. “So a parent educator had his ears checked and we found out he wasn’t hearing and therefore couldn’t talk as well as other two-year-olds so he ended up getting tubes and got some speech therapy and now he is developmentally where he needs to be.”
By giving parents free access to resources while their children are young they are able to get them the help they need to be on track academically with their peers. This program also hosts play groups with other parents and their children to improve students’ social skills and give them exposure to interaction with other children.
“My child is very shy just naturally so I feel like this has helped her kind of become more independent and want to do things outside of just being home.” Maize Parent Ashley Carselowey said.
This program has grown throughout the Maize District and is now in service of one hundred and fifty kids. Parents as teachers works with the community and local businesses to host community events to spread the word of this program.
“When families feel supported the whole community benefits. We build strong families, confident parents, and kids who are ready to go to school and succeed.” McAllister said.
McAllister hopes to grow the program across the district to continue to help and build students’ academic and social skills to be ready for school.
“I’d like our community partners to be able to share more about what happens in our community with maize parents as teachers,” McAllister said. “Ultimately my goal is for all children in the maize school district to start kindergarten or pre school strong as they can.”
