Shannon NickinsonMontclair Elementary School is a long way from the Pensacola Bay Center.
It is light-years away from the spectacle that unfolded at the Pensacola landmark when Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump addressed a packed house Wednesday at the 10,000-person capacity arena.
There were plenty of movers and shakers at the Trump event, and a lot of talk about how to make America great again.
But it’s the work going on at the 400-pupil school on Massachusetts Avenue on Pensacola’s west side that is worthy of some attention.
Montclair is one of six sites where ECARE is working to improve the kindergarten readiness of students who are at risk of being among the one out of every three Escambia youngsters who are not ready for school when kindergarten starts.
ECARE (Every Child a Reader in Escambia) is a nonprofit that trains volunteers called Reading Pals to work with preschoolers whose language skills aren’t where they need to be.
On Wednesday morning, the Reading Pals and their youngsters were using games, puzzles, flashcards and books to learn about people who are helpers in the community, animals and practicing their writing skills too.
ECARE has 175 volunteers this year helping preschoolers in six locations.
ECARE also works with the Escambia School District in Wee Read, a program that provides professional development for child care providers to give them the tools they need to be good teachers.
The nonprofit also sponsors Family Night events, which bring families together to help coach parents on how to make reading fun at home.
Montclair’s Assistant Principal Kristen Danley said the extra help ECARE volunteers provide students is crucial for her school, where in some years, as many as 20 kindergarteners are retained.
That’s an entire classroom of children who don’t advance on time to first grade.
Ashley Bodmer, executive director of ECARE, says the program’s goal is to increase the number of children who are reading at proficiency based on their performance on voluntary prekindergarten assessment tests given at the beginning and end of each school year.
At the end of this school year, Bodmer will have data that compares ECARE to other Reading Pal programs across the state.
Last year, the majority of students with Reading Pals were ready based on their VPK assessments.
That’s work that helps make Pensacola better — even greater — one child at a time.
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Shannon Nickinson is the editor of PensacolaToday.com, a news and commentary website in Pensacola, Florida. Follow her on Twitter @snickinson.com. Column courtesy of Context Florida.
