Dean: ELC faces financial obstacles
Early results show South Rome ELC students are outperforming their peers.
A unique partnership between the South Rome Redevelopment Corporation, Rome City Schools and Berry College is yielding quantifiable results for the its 3-year-old pre-K program, however a financial shortfall is still threatening the future of the program.
The first group of 18 3-yearold pre-K students to complete the program at the South Rome Early Learning Center, housed in Anna K. Davie Elementary School, now in kindergarten, are outperforming their peers in language and literacy.
Jackie McDowell, Dean of the Charter School of Education and Human Sciences at Berry College, told members of the Rome Seven Hills Rotary Club on Tuesday that all 48 of the students who have finished the program during the first two years have been on track for early reading standards.
The civic group also learned that the program has experienced 100 percent parent conference attendance.
“Their perception of school is really changing in a very positive way,” McDowell.
A new Memorandum of Understanding between the program partners is being worked on which could see the Rome City Schools picking up more, if not all, of the teacher’s salaries for the threeyear old early learning program.
McDowell said the Georgia Child Care and Parents Service subsidy program known as CAPS was limited in 2015 which has caused a
funding issue for the program.
“CAPS decided to prioritize where they would put their child subsidies. So it is families with grands raising their grandchildren, certain levels of non-English speakers, families who have foster children — so the pool went very small and last year we only had eight children who were eligible for CAPS,” McDowell said.
The South Rome Redevelopment Corp. Executive Director Charles Looney told the Rotary group his board has continued to raise about $50,000 annually to help fund the program but still leaves a major shortfall in funding. Hence the discussion with the Rome City Schools about taking on the teachers as city employees.
McDowell said another major
positive that has grown out of the program is the involvement of Berry students who have shown an interest in teaching in an urban school setting
“I think we’re really building a pipeline,” McDowell said. She pointed out that eight of the Berry students who serve as teacher-aides have been hired into the Rome City School system.
As a result of its three-star rating by the Georgia Bright From the Start early learning agency, the program is being considered as a model for the rest of the state.
“I think the model can be replicated,” McDowell said.
“We’ve still got a lot of details to work out but we couldn’t ask for better partners to help get us through this,” Looney said.