Early development surveys measure readiness of kindergartners for school
Written by Ellen Ciurczak
Hattiesburg American Staff Writer
Three Pine Belt school districts are working with the United Way of Southeast Mississippi on early development surveys that will measure the readiness of children for kindergarten.
The idea behind the surveys is to give parents and the community ways to better prepare children for the start of school, said the United Way’s executive director Dan Kibodeaux.
“Kids not being ready for kindergarten is not the schools’ problem,” he said. “It manifests itself when they get to school. It’s a community issue. It’s up to all of us to work in preparing the next generation to succeed.”
Petal School District is getting ready to conduct the surveys for a second time. Lamar County School District is preparing to administer the surveys for the first time.
Hattiesburg Public School District is waiting for the results from its first surveys.
The survey is a 104-item questionnaire filled out by kindergarten teachers on each
child in their class. The questions cover areas that educational research shows are foundations for success in school, life and work.
The surveys measure five areas of early childhood development:
Physical health and well-being,
Social competence,
Emotional maturity
Language and cognitive skills
Communication skills and general knowledge.
No data is reported on individual children or teachers.
The confidential school reports are analyzed by UCLA’s Center for Healthier Children, Families and Communities, which provides the results to participating teachers and school administrators.
The results show how the children are doing developmentally compared to children in other school districts using the surveys.
Kibodeaux said the surveys are funded by the United Way and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. They are being used in 31 sites around the nation.
Petal School District conducted its first round of surveys on 291 kindergartners at Petal Primary School in February 2010.
“In Petal what it showed was in the emotional maturity domain – that was the greatest area of vulnerability,” Kibodeaux said. “(Children) are emotionally unprepared to start school.”