At 8:30 a.m., breakfast was served. The children in Stacey Edwards’ Head Start class opened their paper bags to find apple dippers, pancake bites and milk. They munched quietly on their apple slices, talking amongst themselves. But then things got personal.
“Ms. Stacey!” Gabriel yelled. “Ms. Stacey, she says I didn’t open my milk!”
Stacey took a seat in one of the tiny chairs at the table made for preschool students. “Did you open it yourself?” she asked calmly.
“Yes!” Gabriel said.
“Wow, you must have worked hard to learn how to do that,” Stacey said. In an instant, the conflict was stabilized.
“I have to drink my milk because it makes me really strong,” Michael announced.
Cantrell sat at the table, singing to himself. “Five little monkeys jumping on the bed, one fell off and bumped his head, Mama called the doctor and the doctor said, four more monkeys jumping on the bed ... ”
Ms. Stacey beamed. She taught Cantrell that song.
***
Stacey teaches a Head Start class at Fairview Elementary School. There are currently 15 kids in her class, ranging from 3 to 5 years old.
For the six hours school is in session every Tuesday through Friday, Stacey reaches out to children from the lowest income brackets and gives them the confidence to believe they can break out of the cycle of poverty.
The nine Head Start classrooms in Monroe County, operated by the nonprofit South Central Community Action Program, serve about 240 children in the area.
For a child to attend the free preschool program, they must be younger than the age of 5 and meet a federal income guideline. All children are accommodated, even those with special needs and disabilities, and school buses pick up and drop off the kids every day.
Stacey, 33, graduated from IU in 2000 with a degree in early education and has worked for the Head Start program ever since. She chose to teach pre-K students because she wanted to be one of the children’s first teachers, to show them how much fun school can be.
This is her third year teaching at Fairview, and it is her first year in the new building.
Stacey’s new classroom has sunny yellow walls and big windows. She scrubbed the tables with Clorox wipes and set out her students’ nametags as she chatted.
Preschool children thrive from routine, she said. Get off the bus at 8:30 a.m. Have breakfast. Brush your teeth. Go outside and play. Free time. Circle time. Lunch. Nap time. Snack time. Get back on the bus at 2 p.m. Repeat.
Because Head Start is federally funded, Stacey has to fill out paperwork to document every aspect of her job: every conversation with parents, every phone call, every flyer sent home with the children.
She logs the lesson plans she designs to make sure she meets her requirement of one nutrition, one health, one multicultural and one safety program each month.
She also designs individual lesson plans for each child every week, looking at their progress throughout the year and how they can continue to grow.
“I like watching kids from the beginning of year to the end of the year,” she said. “I’ve seen parents start the year with nothing and leave with a job, things I helped them with.”
Stacey recalled a little girl who came in to her class through the foster care system and lived with three different families during the school year. Her parents had neglected her, and she had little exposure to language or social situations before starting preschool, so she had a hard time paying attention and playing with her classmates.
“As the girl learned, we realized she was a sweet, caring little girl,” Stacey said. “She often ‘mothered’ other children.”
At the end of the year, Stacey witnessed the child being adopted by her foster family.
Stacey also remembered a little girl in her class last year who lived with her mother and the mother’s whole extended family in Bloomington Housing Authority housing.
The child’s mother had gotten pregnant in high school and dropped out, and she had been unable to hold down a job.
“Her mom hadn’t been educated or anything, so they just tried to survive,” Stacey said. “Now her mom has her own apartment, is taking GED classes, and now just trying to balance studying and working. She’s living.”
***
At 9:15 a.m., the November air was biting. The children in Stacey’s class didn’t care. The second they made it out to the playground, they ran in a thousand different directions.
“These kids just love a patch of grass,” Stacey’s teaching assistant said with a laugh.
Every child on the playground had a coat, gloves and a hat. Most of these items were donated to the Head Start program.
Gabriel was not playing with the other children. He sat on the edge of the playground, arms folded across his chest, wearing a frown.
“He’s mad because there’s a string hanging off his sweater and I told him it’s too cold to take it off,” Stacey explained. “Come on Gabe, let’s go cut the string off inside.”
The two went back into the classroom. They emerged two minutes later, and Gabriel was wearing a blue Power Rangers hoodie instead of the irritating sweater.
Stacey explained that Gabriel’s parents just had another child. As an only child, Gabriel didn’t like to share and began acting out for attention.
Happy for some one-on-one attention, Gabriel ran to the playground and started to goof around with his friends.
“People don’t realize how stressful preschool can actually be,” Stacey said. “They’re not old enough to tell you what’s going on inside them. You just have to try your best to understand.”
***
Stacey acts as more than a preschool teacher — she also teaches parents how to be advocates for their own children.
“I try to educate parents on how the school system works,” she said. “A lot of parents don’t know how to register their kids for kindergarten.”
SCCAP also assists parents by tracking the students’ immunizations and providing three guaranteed meals per child each day.
Being in a Head Start class exposes the children to new experiences, like playing on the computer or taking a tour of the local fire station.
Head Start also acts as a safe haven for the children. Stacey has had her students come to her because they need someone to talk to about their parents’ fighting or going to jail.
“I tell the parents that kids really don’t keep any secrets from me. The kids are comfortable here,” Stacey said.
***
At 9 a.m., Head Start took over Kroger.
The produce department, normally eerily quiet on a Friday morning, was filled with the chatter of Stacey’s students. Store manager Toni Ladow cut a juicy pineapple into cubes and handed each child a piece of the yellow fruit.
“The pineapple you’re about to eat comes from Costa Rica,” Ladow told Stacey’s class. “Try it!”
Some of the children eyed the pineapple nervously, and some popped it into their mouths eagerly.
“Wow!” Isabella exclaimed. The other children echoed their approval.
Stacey snapped some pictures of her students. She had been documenting the field trip for the parents who couldn’t attend: pictures of the kids wearing hairnets in the deli area, exploring the inside of the semi truck that brings boxes of food to the store every morning and listening to the pharmacist in the white coat teach them about taking medicine.
“We have something else special for you,” Ladow said. “Come on, friends.”
She led the group to the back of the store, just as she has led this field trip many times before.
“You can go in front of me, I’ve been on this field trip like 20 times,” Stacey said, encouraging the parent chaperons.
She brings her class every year to Kroger because the grocery store is so welcoming to them. Ladow showed the children what goes on behind the scenes in the store and gave them free samples of foods that would be too expensive for them to normally try.
The group squeezed through the swinging doors in the back of the store to the area where employees load cartons of milk and juice into the refrigerators.
“This is orange juice. How many of you have tried this before?” Ladow asked the students.
She handed out clear Dixie cups halfway filled with orange juice.
Many of the children paused a moment before taking a sip. They swished the orange juice around in their mouths like little wine sommeliers, analyzing whether or not they liked the flavor.
“Yeah! This is my favorite!” Gabriel said. “Thank you!”
Stacey patted Gabriel’s shoulder, proud of his manners.
***
Most of the kids in Stacey’s class this year are young. For them, learning numbers and letters isn’t as important as learning to leave their parents and to believe that they can stand on their own.
Stacey gives her students a lot of one-on-one attention, letting them sit in her lap while she reads them books or playing blocks with them on the floor. It’s the same kind of attention she gives to her own daughters, ages 6 and 3.
To make the kids more comfortable on the first day of school, Stacey visited each child at home during the summer so they would recognize a familiar face in the classroom.
During the home visits, she helped the parents fill out the necessary enrollment paperwork and talked with family members about what they hoped the child would get out of the school year.
On the first day of school she gave each child individual attention, showering them with hugs and letting them sit in her lap so they felt safe.
“One kid’s mom wrote their phone number on a piece of paper and put it in his pocket,” Stacey said. “He felt better knowing that we could get ahold of his mom at any time.”
Only three kids cried on the first day of school this year. Two of them were fine after a few days, and the other student took three weeks to adjust. A look in the classroom reveals a room of happy, carefree preschoolers.
Stacey sets an open door policy for her class — parents can come in any time, and they don’t have to sign in. She invites parents into the classroom because some are too intimidated to come on their own.
Stacey said some parents had negative experiences in school, so they don’t find the school to be welcoming. She has also had parents who couldn’t read but were too ashamed to tell their children.
Though engaging parents can be a battle, Stacey made a point of talking with each parent when they dropped their child off at school to let them know the progress their child has been making.
Head Start also has program-wide events like Muffins with Mom, when parents come eat breakfast in the classroom.
“For something like this, I have the parents decorate an invitation for their parents,” Stacey said. “I try to show them how much it means to their children for them to come volunteer in the classroom.”
Stacey keeps a stack of light blue index cards, connected by a keychain ring, in her pocket while she is in the classroom. She writes notes and observations throughout the day about each child, highlighting it with a purple marker once she types it into her computer files. Writing their name, making a friend and even learning to share are huge leaps in the life of a preschooler.
“I get pretty excited,” Stacey said. “I try to call their parents or catch them outside. I want to tell them right away so they can see their hard work is paying off.”
Despite Stacey’s efforts, only one parent has volunteered with the class this year. But more of her parents work than in years past, some have transportation issues and some have to stay home with younger children.
Stacey shrugs it off. “Life happens,” she said. She’s here for the kids, after all.
***
At 10:00 a.m., free time finally arrived.
Once the children in Stacey’s class washed their hands, the world was theirs to explore.
Three of the girls gravitated toward the wood blocks in the corner of the room and started building a castle. Bella was inventive and transformed a triangular wood block into a slide.
Isabella was Hannah Montana live in concert, dancing in circles on the number rug to Smash Mouth’s “All Star.”
Some of the boys played with dinosaur figurines, roaring at each other and playfully wrestling.
Gabriel was wearing a shirt that said “Mom’s Little Monster.” He wandered around the classroom, unsure of what he wanted to do, his glasses sliding off his face.
“Do you want to draw, Gabe?” Stacey asked.
She stapled some paper with dotted lines together into a book and created a cover out of blue construction paper.
“Yeah!” Gabriel exclaimed.
Stacey wrote his name on the front in her neat handwriting and put the book on the table in front of him with a box of crayons.
“Show me how to write your name,” Stacey said.
Gabriel picked up a fat brown crayon and looked at her uneasily. He took the crayon in his hand and put it to the paper. His brow was furrowed in concentration. Slowly and shakily he wrote the letter “G.”
“I did it! I’m learning to do it!” Gabriel exclaimed, drawing a smile from Stacey.
Gabriel was soon distracted and began drawing a rainbow instead of finishing his name. But that “G” remained on the page, representing how far one little boy had come and how much farther he had to go.
