BOISE, Idaho — The Boise School District's new Lincoln Early Learning Center is helping children ages 3 to 5 get off to a good start through early education and support services.
- The center focuses on holistic child development and offers programs for both general education and special needs students.
- Families also benefit from resources such as lending libraries and connections to community services to ensure they receive comprehensive support beyond the classroom.
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(Below is the full transcript of the broadcast.)
“One of the things I really enjoy watching is the growth from day one to the end of the year,” said Head Start center supervisor Cathy Burruss.
Burruss is the center supervisor for Lincoln Early Learning Center’s Head Start program, and she has seen firsthand the benefits of early education programs since her children first enrolled 25 years ago.
“It's gone through their lives, and I still see them becoming wonderful adults in the community,” Burruss said.
Children ages 3 to 5 are excited to start learning at the Boise School District's new Lincoln Early Learning Center.
“It's about addressing the whole child — preparing them socially and preparing them academically,” said Lisa Ramey Hernandez, director of the Lincoln Early Learning Center.
The centers also offer special education programs and resources for low-income families. The classroom environment fosters independence through activities such as hand washing and sharing family meals, as well as social and educational experiences such as group play, shape tracing and writing names.
“Research has demonstrated that this kind of inclusion and early intervention is really beneficial not only for students with learning disabilities, but for students without disabilities as well,” Ramey Hernandez says.
Research shows that the number of books a child has access to at home is one of the biggest predictors of a child's success in school and beyond, which is why the centre also offers outside support such as a lending library and places an emphasis on introducing young children to books from an early age.
“They can answer questions in the book and point to pictures in the book,” Ramy Hernandez said.
And outside the classroom, for families like Cathy's, “they connect them with doctors, they connect them with community resources that are there – housing, rent assistance, gas assistance, grocery assistance. We provide them all of those resources. I've been a part of the community classroom and I've seen the growth, it's been amazing. It's been really wonderful. I love it,” Burruss says.