Newton schools continue collaboration with YMCA, welcome Peck to preschool program

Newton schools is extending its universal preschool partnership with the YMCA and has added on another agency to better prepare children for kindergarten.

In addition to continuing the school district’s preschool agreement with Newton YMCA, the school board on April 11 approved the inclusion of local nonprofit Peck Child Development Center into its programming. All three entities expressed a desire to provide high quality preschool programming.

Similar to what the YMCA has done this past year, Peck will provide preschool services at its site, 513 E. Fifth St. N., in Newton. As part of its agreement, Peck must appoint a director who is acceptable and accessible to the school district and who shall collaborate with administrators and other program providers.

Program sessions at Peck will be a minimum of 10 hours per week of intentional, direct instruction. The district will provide instructional materials, transportation at its discretion to and from the program site and qualified teacher meeting licensure requirements. Preschool partners will meet throughout the year, too.

School board member Travis Padget commended the district’s efforts to seek community partnerships.

“Nine years ago we talked about collaboration … So seeing that come to fruition from nine years ago of making sure we have that more unified curriculum and reaching out to the community to impact more lives,” Padget said. “I’m very proud that we’re doing this. And I think everyone has put effort into that.”

In June 2021, the Newton school district and YMCA developed its partnership to provide preschool curriculum services. Superintendent Tom Messinger told Newton News at the time “any type of partnership a school district can have with a different community partner is a benefit to everybody.”

Both the YMCA and Newton shared the same goal of continuing the growth of children staying in Newton. For the past year the district has been operating its own preschool sessions Tuesdays through Fridays at Thomas Jefferson Elementary while YMCA operates the same curriculum at its own site.

School board member Donna Cook wanted the district to address some issues she had with the partnership, specifically regarding dedicated classrooms for preschoolers at the YMCA and possibly hiring an educational associate to provide a little more consistency and training to the program.

Newton YMCA CEO Lucas Hughes clarified there is a dedicated room for pre-k students. The facility has two separate rooms, in fact. Half of the kids will go down to the 4-year-old room in the morning while the other half go to a separate room for child care. In the afternoon, both groups swap rooms.

“It’s a very smooth process,” Hughes said. “We have dedicated space for almost everything. Again, that’s stuff that we’re working through.”

Dr. Jessica Powers, director of special education, addressed Cook’s other comment about staff continuity, saying the child care director and educational associate employed by the YMCA are going to be attending all of the trainings next year. Powers said that was something the district did not do this past year.

“But we do have that in place for next year,” Powers said, adding that whether they are employed by the district or by the YMCA “we really feel like that collaboration and training piece that we’re employing for next year” will provide greater continuity and consistency.

As the YMCA enters its second year in the preschool partnership, Peck begins its first term working alongside the school district.

Selina McKinney, president of the Peck Child Development Center board, told school board members the partnership with the district just made sense. And McKinney is looking forward to having a licensed teacher at the daycare making use of the district resources to benefit the children, the schools and community.

Much like the YMCA, Peck will adopt Newton’s preschool curriculum. Ashton Hoffman, director of Peck Child Development Center, told Newton News about 18 kids will be able to utilize the programming. Hoffman 100 percent believes the organization can fill those spots. However, Peck will only offer morning sessions.

“In the next few years we are hoping to incorporate morning and afternoon,” Hoffman said. “We’re still working on hours. It’ll probably be relatively the same (as Newton and YMCA). We’re thinking maybe 8 to 11 a.m. or 8:30 to 11:30 a.m. It’s just because we’re a daycare so we have certain rules to abide by.”

Hoffman said the organization is very excited to begin working with the Newton school district. The preschool partnership is something Peck has been wanting to do, and Hoffman is grateful Messinger wanted to incorporate the organization into the program.

“It’s definitely great for us and it’s great for the community school district keeping kids at our center. That way they don’t have to find transportation to and from preschool and then missing certain parts of the day,” Hoffman said. “…We can’t wait to get started and we look forward to the training coming up.”

Contact Christopher Braunschweig at 641-792-3121 ext 6560 or at cbraunschweig@newtondailynews.com