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Reopening books, together
By DONNA WINCHESTER, Times Staff Writer LEALMAN -- Brenda Santiago's moment of truth came one day last summer when her 5-year-old daughter, Corinna, brought her a book and asked for a story. Santiago declined, not because she was too busy or too tired. She said no because she didn't know how to read. Her 10-year-old son, Sean, picked up the book and read the story to his sister. "He said, 'Mom, how come you can't read?' He kind of embarrassed me in a sense," she said. "He made me feel like there was a lot I needed to know." His question made Santiago, 28, realize she could no longer afford to be a high school dropout. In August, she enrolled in Even Start, a federally funded family literacy program, so she could give her children a better life than the one her mother, who also was a high school dropout, had been able to give her. Santiago's family is one of nearly 1,000 families that have participated in Even Start since it debuted in Pinellas County in 1993. The program provides adult education and child-rearing information to parents, as well as early childhood education for their children under 8. At least twice a week, parents and children work together on creative projects or go on educational field trips. Additionally, a parent educator makes home visits to model the ways parents and children can work together to improve family literacy. "The focus is always on literacy, on what we can do to get mom and child interacting to help that child do better in school," Even Start project manager Mary Putnam said. "One family at a time, we help our parents be the best they can be." The three Even Start centers in Pinellas County are at Union Academy Family Center in Tarpon Springs and at the Pinellas Technical Education Center and Lealman Elementary in St. Petersburg. It is open to moms and dads, but most participants are mothers. Brenda Santiago attends the program at Lealman, 4001 58th Ave. N. Five mornings a week, she drops Corinna off in the prekindergarten classroom and then walks down the hall to Anne Morgan's adult education class. Morgan, 46, has been teaching adult education at Lealman Elementary for eight years. A single parent and a high school dropout at 17, she knows firsthand how difficult it is to come back to school, especially for women with young children. She returned to school in her 20s, became certified in elementary education in her 30s and is one class away from a master's degree in educational leadership. Besides getting her students ready to take the General Educational Development test, or GED, she shares her experience with them, encouraging them to use what they learn in her class as a springboard to higher education. Most of her students, Morgan said, left school in eighth or ninth grade and come into her class at a fifth- or sixth-grade level. They receive an individual education "prescription" based on a computerized pretest when they enter the program. Through a combination of group instruction, self-directed computer instruction and one-on-one help from Morgan, they work toward bringing their math, language and reading skills to a ninth-grade level, which makes them eligible to take a GED pretest. When their pretest scores are high enough, Morgan recommends them for the GED test. For most students, it is a six-month to one-year project, Morgan said. "You have to be able to not judge them, but take them at the level they're at when they walk in the door," she said, explaining that many former high school dropouts suffer from low self-esteem. Many of them also have things going on in their lives that make concentrating on school difficult, including work, child care and transportation issues. Not all of the moms can be there for the full day, Morgan said, and they can't always come every day, but she encourages them to come as often as they can. Besides working on academics, Morgan helps them with "soft skills," such as how to interview for a job and how to keep a job once they are hired. At least once a week, part of their morning session includes a parenting education lecture or workshop. Recently, Pinellas County Schools community services coordinator Christina Figueiredo presented a workshop to teach the moms how to encourage their children to write. She explained the stages a child goes through from drawing and scribbling to the formation of complete sentences, stressing that even in the same family, each child learns at a different rate. At another workshop, a representative from a marriage and family counseling center lectured on anger management, offering tips on how parents can model good behaviors for their children. Twice a week, the moms join their children in the prekindergarten class for Parents and Children Together, or PACT time. They work on arts and crafts projects geared to make learning fun, Putnam said. Home visits are an important part of Even Start. Josie Lucas, an Even Start parent educator, spends Mondays and Tuesdays in the adult education classroom and schedules at least two 40-minute visits each month with families in the program. Lucas, 42, who was a wife and mother at 15, calls herself "an old-time welfare mom who worked her way out of the system." She raised five children on her own before coming into the school system 12 years ago as a volunteer. As she improved her education, she worked as a cafeteria assistant, a part-time office clerk and a teacher's assistant in a class for emotionally handicapped students. She spent five years in dropout prevention before coming to Even Start in May. "Being a welfare mom, having gone through the system, I feel I have a lot to offer," she said. "I do a lot of listening to the needs of my parents. I may go in there with a plan of what I'm going to do and their needs may be completely different. Sometimes they just need someone to be supportive." Besides bringing books and age-appropriate toys into the homes she visits, she also brings information about community services available to families and teaches parents how to access them. The job can be overwhelming, she said, but when she sees moms reading to their children, and when the children start reading to their moms, she knows she's making progress. Brenda Santiago is one of Even Start's success stories, Lucas said. "On the last home visit, I didn't have to do anything. I just had to observe," she said. "There was nothing I had to add. Her interaction with her children was so powerful. I just needed to encourage her to continue." Santiago, who progressed from sixth-grade to ninth-grade level in four months, is thrilled with her progress. "When we're driving in the car, I read signs. I see things I didn't notice before," she said. "I'm reading bumper stickers." She also is reading books to her children. She knows her efforts are having a positive effect on her son, because after getting unsatisfactory grades for years, he made the honor roll in his last grading period. Santiago, who wants to become a teacher's assistant, plans to take the GED test in June. When she passes, she will become the first high school graduate in her family. Since she returned to school, she has been encouraging her 24-year-old sister and her 19-year-old brother to go back. "I always tell everybody, 'You can't schedule it, you've just got to do it,' " she said. "I tried scheduling it my whole life, ever since I dropped out. Now I'm doing it." Even StartTo qualify for Even Start, you must be at least 16 years old and have a child under 8. You must be willing to attend adult education classes either part time or full time to prepare for the General Educational Development test, or GED. Both mothers and fathers are eligible for the program. If you or someone you know would like to know more about Even Start, call project manager Mary Putnam at 552-1568.
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From the Times South Pinellas desks |
