Early childhood education: Avoiding expulsions

Keeping kids enrolled is goal

Trinity Day School in Tulsa praises the work of a little-known Oklahoma program for improving the behavior of children in its classrooms and strengthening the school's curriculum.

The Child Care Consultation program fits a recommendation made by a national panel last week as a way to reduce expulsions in early childhood programs.

Allison Geary, special projects coordinator for the nationally accredited Trinity Day School, said the school has used the consultants at least seven times in the last six months.

"It benefits our school as a whole," Geary said. "Parents can have more confi dence that we are not only relying on our own instincts and knowledge, which are good, but also on the body of scholarly research to follow best practices."

The program's goal is to keep children enrolled in centers when they might be in danger of being asked to leave.

Consultants offer ideas when providers are stumped by aggressive or challenging behaviors in children. Ages of children range from infants to preschool.

"Teachers are looked to by parents as people who have all the answers," Geary said. "Teachers will try everything we can and know. But sometimes, having an extra set of eyes from the psychological perspective may give us that extra help we need."

More than 480 consultations were given last year for 168 providers in 25 counties.

Most referrals result in simple adjustments such as rearrangement of play stations or a change in a child's schedule.

"It seems to me, half the time we are moving furniture around," program manager Dale Wares said. "It is not always about the kid. I view this as an organizational consultant. A good consultant will bring about change in the whole organization and how it functions."

The program is free through the state Department of Human Services and receives funding from the state Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services and has a partnership with the Center for Early Childhood Professional Development. The program has a budget of $120,000.

The program began in 2002 as a pilot, expanded to 13 counties in 2003 and now is available in 50 counties.

Smart Start Oklahoma and the Oklahoma Child Care Resource and Referral Association have hosted meetings on the topic of consultants in child-care settings.

"We are underutilized," Wares said. "We would be delighted if we had trouble meeting the needs. We have a service that will strengthen the quality of child care. But too often, it goes unused."

A report released Thursday by the Foundation for Child Development updates a groundbreaking study two years ago that tracked the number of expulsions in preschools.

Children are much more likely to be expelled from prekindergarten programs with high student-teacher ratios, who are in extended day programs or who have a teacher with a high level of job stress, according to the report.

The previous report found that prekindergarten programs had an expulsion rate triple that of kindergartners through high school students. Four-year-olds were expelled at a rate 50 percent greater than 3-year-olds, and boys were expelled at a rate of more than 4.5 times that of girls.

An expulsion so early in a child's life can be a first step in a downward trajectory, said Libby Doggett, executive director of Pre-K Now.

"It sets a course and has an enormous cost to children, families and communities," Doggett said. "Quality in pre-K programs really matters. In high-quality programs, children control behaviors, solve problems using words and engage in group settings.

"We know these improvements are not cheap. Quality programs cost more. Scrimping on quality has lasting effects. There is no way to get around it. We pay now or pay later."

Lead researcher Walter Gilliam said teachers with ongoing relationships with early childhood mental health consultants are about half as likely to expel a child.

But only about 23 percent of pre-K teachers have such access.

Teachers usually have access to consultants for speech, learning difficulties and physical disabilities, Gilliam said.

"But we rarely supply teachers the one thing they tend to complain about the most and have the most challenges -- behavior," he said.

"We're not saying don't expel. We're saying do something differently. Provide supports or transition to a more appropriate program."

Ginnie Graham 581-8376
ginnie.graham@tulsaworld.com

Ways to reduce prekindergarten expulsion

1. Do not expel children with challenging behaviors. Determine the supports needed for the child to succeed or help transition into a program better suited to meet the child's needs.

2. Provide all early childhood teachers access to mental-health consultants to help them manage the behavior of challenging children.

3. Assign no more than 10 preschoolers to one teacher per class, preferably fewer.

4. Require enough time for teachers to relax during the school day, especially in extended-day programs.

5. Supportive polices and services should focus on teacher job stress.

6. Government funding should be spent on tracking children expelled form publicly funded pre-K programs. Money should also be spent on implementing and evaluating models to improve child classroom behavior and prevent preschool expulsion.

7. Research should focus on (a) family and community factors associated with risk for expulsion, (b) methods for effective preschool and home collaborations, (c) teacher training in classroom behavior management, and (d) effectiveness of early intervention services as a prevention for severe behavior problems.

Source: "Implementing Policies to Reduce the Likelihood of Preschool Expulsion," available through the Foundation for Child Development

Oklahoma child-care consultation

Child-care centers can call the Warmline at (888) 574- 5437 to request a behavioral and developmental consultant.

The program is available to facilities with contracts to serve low-income families using a state subsidy.