Watching the growth and metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly is astonishing to watch. The obvious beauty and growth that a butterfly represents is what made it the obvious symbol for the 10 year anniversary of the Early Learning Collaborative Act that established state funded pre-K in Mississippi.
“How the butterfly grows—it starts as a caterpillar and then grows into a butterfly—is kind of like how we view our children with the pre-K program,” explained Dixie McCollough at Quitman Lower Elementary. “We’re trying to help them grow and change and be more successful. We’re in year 10 for the collaborative for the State of Mississippi, and actually we were in the first round of collaborative.”
Although the Early Learning Collaborative Act wasn’t signed into law until April 18, 2013, Quitman School District and Friends of Children of MS, Inc. Manuel Goff Head Start Early Head Start had already been collaborating with each other.
“The collaborative actually started statewide in January of 2013, and we were one of the first 11 that started it,” expressed Head Start Manager Lisa McCarty. “Actually, we were doing something similar to the collaborative before the collaborative even started because we had the blended service with QLE even before that. We had some children at our site, and they had some children at their site, and we were blended. The music teacher was coming in and doing things with them. The art teacher was coming in and splitting service with them. The Head Start teachers and pre-K teachers were meeting and planning and discussing kindergarten readiness skills and goals to make sure that our children were ready to transition into kindergarten.”
The collaborative has been beneficial for the young students, especially those who may require services to assist with any delays.
“I think one of the most important things about the collaborative is our children with the IEPs and our special needs children,” declared McCarty. “The special ed providers from the QLE come over to our center and provide services to our children who have IEPs. They spend 30 minutes with them at a time on speech and language and other developmental delays or skills they have. It’s great, and they work well together with the teaching staff. It helps those children progress even more—that butterfly effect.”
Over the years, it has become obvious how valuable the program and collaborative have been for the children and their success in school.
“The pre-K program is just valuable to our children,” proclaimed McCollough. “It prepares them for kindergarten, and then when they get to kindergarten they’re finding more success. Since the program has been around for so long, they’re able to do studies and see how the program affects the kids as they grow. They’re less likely to get in trouble, and the graduation success is higher.”
With so much success in place, they planned to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of the collaborative by doing different activities surrounding butterflies.
“The teachers are going to do some read alouds like with The Very Hungry Caterpillar and different books about butterflies,” informed McCollough. “They’re going to do some butterfly art in their classrooms and with the art teacher. Then, they’re going to be learning about the life cycle of a butterfly. We also got every pre-K classroom little butterfly kits. We have some butterflies to stick in the ground, and we’re going to have a spot in front of the buildings for the kids to put them.”
Each of the butterflies the children set out on January 23 represents over 26,000 four-year-olds that have been taught through the collaborative over the last 10 years.
