The University of Wyoming Board of Trustees approved a proposal for a pre-school outreach program that could help improve the quality of preschool education across Wyoming.
“Those programs serve children in our community through a variety of different means [such as] home child care providers, child care centers, developmental centers, head start programs, public schools and preschools,” UW Professor of Elementary Education and Early Childhood Education Tricia Johnson said.
The UW Trustees College of Education Initiative received a Daniels Fund Grant, which is a five-year grant for $4.5 million, in order to fund education initiatives. The pre-school outreach project is one of these initiatives and will cost around $400,000.
“Believing that [this] would improve the quality of programs for children and families, one of our goals is to help link the wide range of supports that are provided to the University of Wyoming students,” Johnson said. “This reason gave UW an opportunity to think of a model that would take all the fragment pieces of child development and teachers’ development and bring them together for providers around the state.”
Another focus for the pre-school outreach program is to provide an outreach network not only to help children with support and services but also to help the outreach providers with their work and professional development towards a degree in early childhood education.
“It’s more like a win-win situation, the kind of program where UW students can get professional experience and the children can get all the services and help and support,” UW Education major Jacqueline Swartz said.
Research groups conducted surveys that included a number of individuals from the state. This was done to evaluate numerous issues related to early childhood.
“I think this program will be a successful one as people were putting in efforts, since summer, doing research and surveys,” UW sophomore Annika Mitchell said.
After looking at the results, UW made efforts to make a program where teachers could access information in professional development, as well as educational development, all in one place.
