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Showing Up Ready on Day One of School
By Heidi Stevens
Wanting to help parents start the 2010-11 school year prepared, Baltimore Education Network (BEN) at Civic Works is working this summer to give parents in Baltimore City Public Schools (City Schools) a jump-start on the enrollment process. They're utilizing AmeriCorps Summer Associate VISTAs to create and distribute a Pre-K Pak to parents.
BEN, a community-based organization aimed at actively involving families and caregivers in the education of City Schools children, worked with the district’s Early Learning Office to identify elementary schools with no or low pre-k enrollment. The result is that four college students from Widener University and Johns Hopkins University—serving as AmeriCorps VISTAs—are spending the summer preparing literature and enrollment forms for the Pre-K Pak, learning the ABCs of community canvassing and knocking on doors in Cherry Hill and west Baltimore. Their goal is simple: identify parents of pre-k-aged children and give them the pre-k enrollment forms needed to get started.
One Cherry Hill grandmother of three thanked the VISTAs for saving her time, and another community member said, “It’s good to see you out here.”
The next phase of the VISTAs' pre-k project involves holding two community workshops, where parents can get free immunizations and discount coupons for school uniforms. Families will also learn how to prepare children for the first day of school, instill good study habits and get involved in the school’s organized parent group. The project ends with parents taking a tour of their child’s school.
As the summer moves on, the VISTAs know much more about City Schools, its families and the community than they did when they walked into BEN at Civic Works on the very first day. Thanks to our VISTAs, fewer children will sit in school offices instead of classrooms this August.
BEN’s AmeriCorps Summer Associate VISTAs include Christie Pridgen, Kevin Franklin, Jill Young and Emmanuel Ohuabunwa.
For information about registering and showing up ready on the first day of school, click here or contact the Early Learning Office at 443-642-6688.
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Four-year-old Dashaun used an ink pen and a piece of scrap paper to draw a picture of a house as he waited all day in the school’s conference room for his mom to pick him up. Instead of learning the names of his new pre-k classmates and his very first teacher, Dashaun spent his first day of school alone, while his mother scurried about the city pulling together the required documents needed to enter school. Sad to say, Dashaun wasn’t alone: Last school year, pre-k children all over Baltimore faced the same plight. Many parents who waited until the first day of school to enroll their children showed up at the schoolhouse without the proper forms. A number didn’t have the required immunizations, some didn’t have proof of income and others showed up without birth certificates. 
During the first outreach effort, the entire BEN team, led by the VISTAs, knocked on more than 200 doors, engaging families and handing out 226 copies of the Pre-K Pak. Full of enthusiasm and equipped with information gleaned from a training session sponsored by the Early Learning Office, we hit the streets and were met with lots of interest from the community. Many families were pleased to get the hand-delivered enrollment forms and were especially happy to hear that the TIKE Van would be out to provide the free immunizations required for enrollment. 
