AMERICAN FALLS — From bank employees to cashiers, many members of the American Falls community can be seen donning similar T-shirts every Wednesday that share a simple message on the front: Read Talk Play.
This message has been part of a broader effort of the American Falls’ School District’s initiative to provide high-quality preschool education to children during a crucial stage of their development.
This effort, which many may know as the Read Talk Play Everyday initiative, has been an ongoing endeavor and has achieved many of its goals it originally set out to do since its launch in March of 2019.
One of these goals included increasing the number of quality preschool seats in the district to 30 by the fall of 2020. It was not just met but was more than doubled when the initiative was able to bring in a total of 74 seats, according to the United Way of Southeast Idaho.
The effort has also increased the number of young students participating in preschool programs from 48 students to 118 and counting. This was made possible in large part by many donations and scholarships from local businesses and organizations, such as the $47,000 in scholarships that United Way has provided, which has helped send children from financially burdened families to preschool.
Lamb Weston and Driscoll Potatoes were among the businesses that contributed scholarships for young students, said Superintendent Randy Jensen.
And they’ve received support from the Idaho Association for the Education of Young Children, which gave United Way of Southeast Idaho a $70,000 “Preschool the Idaho Way” grant back in December of 2019 to help the city expand the seats and train community preschool staff members so they can possess the best skills available.
One of the initiative’s other goals — which was to increase parent involvement in their preschool-aged children’s early education development — was a little more difficult to measure. But according to American Falls Schools Early Learning Coordinator Tennille Call, they have seen an increase in parents interested in supporting their young kids not just through the increase in participation in preschool attendance, but also through parents dedicating their time to learn at kindergarten preparation classes.
“We … did the ready for kindergarten classes and they were classes sponsored by Idaho (AEYC),” Call said. “Parents could sign up and learn how to play with their kids to help them become more kindergarten ready and learn those skills. … They did get materials from coming but they also did have to devote time to be able to come and listen to (about) two to three hour classes and I think that commitment that parents made to come to those and be part of this is a way to show that parents are improving or are interested in this effort.”