HOPE for tomorrow

Deirdre Newman

About 40% of all children entering kindergarten are not ready for

school, district kindergarten teachers say.

To combat this startling statistic, the Newport-Mesa Unified School

District has embarked on a holistic readiness program.

The HOPE -- Health, Opportunities, Preparedness and Education --

School Readiness Program is an amalgamation of established services and

new resources that work synergistically with each other.

HOPE, which started earlier this spring, underscores the dire need for

school readiness on Costa Mesa’s Westside, where most students speak a

language other than English at home, said Lorie Hoggard, the district’s

new director of early childhood education.

Program funding comes from the Children and Families Commission of

Orange County, which gave districts money to research what they needed to

do to enhance school readiness .

Jane Garland, school readiness facilitator, became the district’s

visionary -- talking to teachers about what ingredients the district

lacked.

And it was Garland who created the name HOPE -- based on her first

granddaughter.

“I loved her name because it was hope for the future,” Garland said.

“I said, ‘Hope’s the perfect name for what we want for all of our

children.”’

Although a preschool serving 144 students and some adult classes

already existed on the Whittier Elementary School campus, Garland found

that they weren’t fully integrated.

The preschool classes now include a class for infants and toddlers, so

parents of very young children can attend the adult classes. In addition

to teaching English, the parenting classes now include health, nutrition,

parenting and school readiness. In the future, the program hopes to go

high-tech -- offering adult classes online with video streaming. A

preschool was also added at Wilson School and now serves 48 students.

Another addition is a pediatric nurse practitioner who spends 2 1/2

days a week at the Whittier preschool to help parents cope with the

intricacies of immunizations and other health issues.

There is also a new school readiness resource center that has a wealth

of resources, including information about early childhood education,

read-aloud books for parents and preschool teachers, and an online

research station.

And the new face of HOPE is Hoggard, who is still finishing out the

school year as principal of Sonora Elementary School.

Hoggard has an extensive background in early childhood education and

knows what students need to thrive.

“Parents need to be involved, kids need to be healthy, language and

motor skills need to be developed,” Hoggard said. “Our preschool puts

children on a positive trajectory with so many support systems.”

And if the past is any indication of future success, the initial

efforts at school readiness are already paying off, Hoggard said.

“Hands down, the kids that come to our preschool are outperforming

everyone else,” Hoggard said.

That’s a declaration that parent Claudia Monroy can attest to. Her

son, Jesse, attended his second year of preschool at Whittier last year

and couldn’t wait to start kindergarten.

“I think he was very well-prepared,” Monroy said. “He always told me

that kindergarten would fly by because he would know more than the other

kids.”

FYI

The HOPE program will celebrate its official opening at 10 a.m.

Thursday at the Whittier Elementary School preschool.