December 11, 2006 - David Kelley, head of the Southeast Tennessee/North Georgia Head Start program and a member of the Bradley County Board of Education, attended a Head Start conference in Nashville this week. He returned with some challenging information about the future of pre-Kindergarten in the city and county school systems.

Gov. Phil Bredesen, who spoke at the conference, had words of praise for Head Start and its collaboration with the Cleveland and Bradley County pre-K programs. He also stressed prospects for the future of pre-K in Tennessee.

Tennessee 's governor has ambitious plans for pre-K classes across the state and hopes the program will be available (universal) in all Tennessee schools within the next four years.

A focus of Bredesen's talk about pre-K was “collaboration.” He singled out the City of Cleveland School System and the local Head Start program. He said Head Start has collaborated with pre-K in providing facilities for the continuation and growth of the program locally.

The governor said collaboration is something which will be needed as the pre-K program grows over the next few years, not only in Cleveland and Bradley County, but across the state.

Kelley emphasized there are currently 18 pre-K classes in Cleveland and Bradley County. Due to facility delays, he said Head Start was able to take two classes destined for Arnold Elementary and house them at the East Cleveland Early Childhood Center. A class destined for Mayfield Elementary School is being housed at Head Start's Blythe Community facility.

“This is the type of collaboration the governor is anticipating (statewide),” said Kelley.

The Head Start director said the anticipated growth of the state's pre-K program will also be a tremendous challenge for school districts which are already facing capacity enrollment — such as the Bradley County School District.

“Recent enrollment numbers provided county commissioners do not reflect pre-K students,” Kelley emphasized. In the 18 pre-K classrooms, there are 360 additional students. He said these students will be counted toward the BEP number for the 2007-2008 school year.

“To make this happen, we will have to have more collaboration,” said Kelley.

One of the county's pre-K classes is being housed at Valley View Baptist Church in the Valley View community. Of the 18 city/county classes, one is being held at a church, three at the Blythe facility, four at East Cleveland, and eight in city and county schools.

Some schools, such as Taylor Elementary, do not have pre-K classrooms but will get them in the future.

The Head Start director is planning a January meeting with representatives of all Three-Star pre-K providers, including local churches. He said facilities, teachers and other resources will have to be provided if pre-K programs continue to grow.

Bradley County has asked for six additional pre-K classes for next year, and the Cleveland City school system has asked for four additional classes. If these classes are granted, facilities and teachers will have to be provided.

Kelley said a difficulty in collaborating with churches is periodic change in church leadership and a possibility facilities may not always be available.

“The first thing we have to do (at the January meeting) is to find out who's interested,” he said. “We don't want anyone to be in competition with anyone else.”

“The advantage of the pre-K program is tremendous,” said Kelley. “Teachers and administrators get to know these younger children and can provide a much better match for them in succeeding years.”

The young students also receive the benefit of early training in reading and other skills prior to regular school enrollment.

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