It’s been hard to find the silver lining to the cancellation of the last two months of the school year, particularly for high school seniors, but Sunflower County’s Pre-K students and parents are part of some of the more positive news to come out of the COVID-19 shutdown.
Delta Health Alliance, which took over Sunflower County’s Head Start program this past school year, delivered 191 Kindles to local Pre-K students this week in an effort to provide more educational opportunities for children who will be entering kindergarten next year.
“All of our students who will be entering kindergarten next year and attend our Sunflower County Head Start centers will be receiving one,” said DHA’s Leigh-Anne Gant.
Gant said as soon as spring break was extended back in March, and it became apparent it was going to be for at least several weeks, the DHA staff began to brainstorm about ways the organization could support the families it serves.
“As soon as we all had to go home, we started trying to figure out how we were going to stay connected and serve our families best,” Gant said.
Although the last three weeks have been hard on the parents and the children, Gant said the situation has helped to form a bond between the Head Start program, its teachers and the parents.
“It has strengthened our relationship between home and school so much over the last three weeks,” Gant said. “When we started this, our calls were strictly for ‘We miss you. How are you doing?’ and now some of our 30-minute calls have extended way past the 30-minute zone.”
Gant said that DHA is not just there to administer lesson plans to the parents, although that is a main part of it, but they are also there as a support for the families.
She said DHA has helped to secure essentials like food, diapers, formula and other things for families they find in need.
“It has really made the bond stronger between home and school,” Gant said.
Parents can now help their children utilize the Kindles, Gant said, to access tons of educational material through an Amazon Free Time account.
“Every child has access to that account,” she said.
Gant said the app provides developmentally appropriate books, games, apps, movies and even YouTube videos that are educational.
There is a selection of over 200 books, she said, and the selection changes often.
“They can read all day if they want to,” Gant said.
The teachers also have Kindles, and they are creating lesson plans with the devices, and they also hope to soon incorporate Zoom meetings into the equation.
Aside from the Pre-K students, Gant said DHA serves about 600 total kids in the county.
“Our teachers are making family lesson plans that not only are based on electronics, a huge portion is done through interaction and having conversations and talking with children,” she said.
Between the Kindles and the teachers, there is no shortage of interaction between the Head Start program and local families, and Gant said many of the changes that have been forced by sheltering in place will become commonplace when the pandemic is over.
“We’ve started to put things into place that we are not going to let go of once we do get back into school,” she said. “We’re still going to continue some of these things.”
