Imagine you're 4 years old. How would you feel going to preschool with crocodiles, elephants, and butterflies? What about learning letters while on nature walks? That childhood fantasy is reality for kids at the Will Smith Zoo School in San Antonio (68% Latino). The Zoo School, which opened in 2004 and became licensed in 2014 at the San Antonio Zoo, will expand its capacity from about 50 to more than 200 students in 2018 and become the largest nature-based preschool in the nation, SA Current reports. Zoo officials believe that learning can be as much of a serious hands-on experience as it is messy fun. "Children will spend time in nature exploring and discovering the wonders of nature," according to the Zoo School Parent Handbook. "Basic preschool concepts will be ...
Growing up in Texas, Cameron Allen knew he wanted to be a teacher. How could Allen be the best teacher possible in Texas? Where could he make the most impact? He got a higher education in both English and Spanish—an effort that planted a “seed” for his desire to help Spanish-speakers of all ages gain a path to better, healthier lives.
Growing the seeds of knowledge
Allen began his collegiate career studying early childhood education at UT Austin in 2002. He also minored in Spanish, and did student teaching and studying in Mexico and in Ecuador. This strongly influenced his life and career. “It exposed me to another part of the world, to another culture, to another way of life,” Allen said. “It opened my eyes to other possibilities and to what could really be ...
Florida (24% Latino) is home to the nation's largest free preschool program. How did they get it? The long and winding story started 70 years ago and called for epic action—like enabling people to tax themselves for the sake of children, and local residents bypassing state legislators and petitioning for a public vote for universal Pre-K as a Florida Constitutional amendment. By the end, Florida had a model that other states can follow to get free Pre-K in their state.
The Need for Greater Access to Preschool
Latino and all children who attend high-quality early childhood programs are better prepared for kindergarten and overall school success than children who do not attend such programs. However, Latino kids and families across the country face many barriers to access ...
Nap clubs. Quiet rooms. Wellness centers with cozy couches and tea. Schools are trying new ways to give rest to sleepy students, including Latinos who are more sleep-deprived than their peers. That includes high-tech "nap pods" for students in two high schools in Las Cruces (59.6% Latino) and two in Sunland Park (95.2% Latino), N.M. Students sit in the pods, available in the nurse's office, under a sensory-reduction dome that plays relaxing music and soothing lights for 20 minutes before gently vibrating to wake the students.
"[It is] great for kids who weren’t getting enough sleep at night—which teenagers don’t, for a variety of reasons," Sandy Peugh, health services director for the Las Cruces school district, told Las Cruces Sun-News.
"They were coming to school ...
The U.S. Latino population has grown 243% since 1980. But the number of Latino doctors dropped 22%, a study found. That's why we need programs like Roots to Wings. The innovative Roots to Wings program teams up Latino and Native American middle- and high-schoolers in Washington schools with medical students at Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences. The teams then "co-mentor" each other. How? The kids teach the medical students about their Mexican-American or Yakama Nation heritage. The medical students teach the kids about medicine and pursuing higher education. “Roots to Wings is actually an educational pathway for underrepresented youth to enter the health sciences,” Dr. Mirna Ramos-Diaz, who leads the program, recently told the Yakima Herald. ...
This is part of the Salud America! The State of Latino Early Childhood Development: A Research Review »
Head Start Centers as School Readiness Havens
Many children attend Head Start programs, which were founded to promote school readiness for children of low-income families. In recent years, the Head Start curriculum has been challenged to enhance children’s language and preliteracy skills using interactive reading with active discussions. One of these programs, the Research-based, Developmentally Informed (REDI) classroom intervention, uses evidence-based curricula that center on preschool attainment of language, preliteracy, and social-emotional skills considered essential for later achievement. In a study of 356 children (17% Latino) enrolled in Head Start programs, ...
This is part of the Salud America! The State of Latino Early Childhood Development: A Research Review »
The Benefits of ECE Programs for Kids
Children who participate in high-quality early care and education (ECE) programs experience a range of immediate and long-term cognitive and health benefits, with the greatest impact seen in low-income populations.98 Although extensive literature is available on the long-term effects of Head Start and other early childhood development programs on black and white children, the effects of these programs on Latino populations have mostly been ignored.125 Additionally, nearly 40 years ago, it was recognized that cultural differences exist among the different Spanish-speaking people and that different subgroups should be analyzed separately. ...
This is part of the Salud America! The State of Latino Early Childhood Development: A Research Review »
Latino Kids Start Developmentally Behind their Peers
Although Latino children may be of similar weight at birth and equally able to thrive in the first 2 years of life compared with white children,96 their ability to reason and remember tasks (cognitive processing skills), verbally communicate, and identify letters, numbers, and shapes (preliteracy skills) lessens significantly by age 24 months, and these disparities appear even more prevalent in Mexican-American children than in other Latino subgroups.1 In general, a 15- to 25-percentage point gap exists for Latino children relative to their white peers.97 Children who start behind in kindergarten often stay behind. See more in ...
Here's an interesting fact: the more education you have, the longer your lifespan can be. In recent years, Latinos have made tremendous progress in education. High school graduation rates are up while dropout rates are down. Latino students are also enrolling in two- and four-year colleges in greater numbers than ever before. That is the good news. Now, the not-so-good.
Education: Good News vs. Bad News
Latinos, despite their progress, continue to fall behind their white and black peers. In 2016, 45% of all Latinos had at least some college education, up from 35% in 1992, according to the new “Latino Education and Economic Progress: Running Faster but Still Behind” report from the Center on Education and the Workforce. However, the college education gap between Latinos ...
