investment in early education Archives

November 2, 2012
$16 Million Early Childhood Learning Center to Be Built at Bromley-Heath
The state-of-the art center will have 12,000 square feet of outdoor natural play space.

By Chris Helms

A new $16 million early childhood center will be built at Bromley-Heath, officials announced Friday.
Hundreds gathered under a tent on the development’s basketball courts to celebrate the news.
“I can’t wait til this is built,” an elated State Representative Jeffrey Sánchez told the crowd. “This is going to be a lightbulb for this community.”
The center, to be run by Associated Early Care and Education, will be erected where a dilapidated three-story brick building stands. The old building used to be the home of the Martha Eliot Health Center, now ensconced in a new facility nearby.
“Getting to this point wasn’t easy,” said Wayne Ysaguirre, president and CEO of Associated Early Care and Education. He noted that the drive to build it began four years ago, just as the economy tanked.
Construction of the 20,000 square foot facility is slated to begin in late November and be finished by January 2014, according to the Mayor’s Office.
The center’s curriculum will include Science Technology Engineering & Math programs, physical fitness and the arts and after school programs focusing on nature and outdoor exploration. The center aims to serve not only the pre-Kindergarten age kids who are its main focus, but also the families of those children. Adults will be able to get parenting classes and coaching about finding and keeping work.
Ysaguirre said the center will be “unlike anything in Boston and, I suspect, in the nation.”
“This center is yours,” Ysaguirre said to the Bromley-Heath residents in attendence. “This center works if it works for you and your families.”
Several speakers alluded to the center’s role in what they hope will be narrowing the “achievement gap” between poor African-Americans and Latinos and the rest of the nation.
“This is about closing an opportunity gap,” Ysaguirre said. “The most creative people I know are poor people.”
Carol Johnson, the superintendent of Boston Public Schools, spoke in the place of Mayor Thomas Menino, who is recovering from a virus. She said the center would inspire young children to have a love of learning, reading and books such that they won’t “consider it a chore” to further their education.
“This [the achievement gap] is a totally solvable problem,” she said.
Many different government and private agencies are supporting the project. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is putting in $5 million. The United Way is giving $500,000 this year and $500,000 next year.
The biggest applause of the event came when a member of Gov. Deval Patrick’s cabinet announced the state would kick in $1.5 million.
Citing the ongoing work at nearby 225 Centre, where the massive steel superstructure is in place, Secretary Greg Bialecki of the Department of Housing and Economic Development said Patrick has his eye on the needs of Jackson Square.
“We will continue to make investments in this neighborhood until everyone feels the effects of the economic recovery,” Bialecki said.
Getting approval for the project required an act of the legislature. Two of the politicians who shepherded it through Beacon Hill spoke at Friday’s celebration: Sánchez and State Senator Sonia Chang-Díaz.
“This is going to unleash so much talent into our communities,” Chang-Díaz said. Like many speakers, she pointed to the importance of strong early childhood education for residents to succeed.
A big project like this doesn’t come together without lots of fundraising, of course. The point man for that fundraising, Jonathan Lonske, said all the effort will be worth it.
“I’ve spent my career in investments,” said the lanky, tall Lonske, “and this is hands-down the best investment I’ve ever seen.”

Copyright © 2012 Patch. All rights reserved.
URL: http://jamaicaplain.patch.com/articles/16-million-early-childhood-learning-center-to-be-built-at-bromley-heath

SourceJamaica Plain Patch

Metro
November 02, 2012
Bromley-Heath housing complex to get $16 million learning center that focuses on entire families
By Matt Rocheleau | Globe Correspondent
Boston officials and education leaders will break ground Friday on a $16 million learning center at the Bromley-Heath housing development that aims to teach children, their parents, and other members of their community in the same space.
“The more we looked at what really moves the dial for low-income, at-risk kids, we realized we had to focus on the economic stability of the entire family,” said Wayne Ysaguirre, head of Associated Early Care and Education, a Boston nonprofit that is spearheading the project.
The organization has specialized in teaching young children for more than a century and opened an early education center at Bromley-Heath 60 years ago. The complex is located where Jamaica Plain, Mission Hill, and Roxbury converge.
Latoya Taromino’s 3-year-old son, Anthony, is one of about 80 children enrolled at the old center. Working full time as a receptionist and raising three children by herself, the 31-year-old Bromley-Heath resident said she had struggled at times to teach her youngest son. He could not count to 10, for instance, and he fell behind his peers.
But since Anthony joined the early-learning program two summers ago, she said, he has made dramatic improvement. He can count to 30; he knows his ABCs and shapes; he speaks in clear, full sentences, she said. “He’s actually a little ahead.”
Already appreciative, she said, she could not have been more excited to learn about the new, cutting-edge center, ¬expected to open in 2014 .
The existing site at Bromley-Heath is located in an old basement. After trying for two decades, operators secured new property nearby four years ago, and planning began.
The core component will be early education. The new facility will have room for about 175 children up to age 8.
More than a dozen other organizations will share resources, including the Thrive in 5 initiative, which is run by the city and the United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley. The initiative prepares Boston children for kindergarten.
The center’s 150 educators will be required to have at least a bachelor’s degree, a high requirement for early education, Ysaguirre said.
The 20,000-square-foot facility will be run as a lab school, incorporating the latest research on creative curriculum and teaching methods.
The energy-efficient building will be paid for by a $5 million federal grant, a $1.5 million state grant, and private donations.
“We can’t engage a kid without engaging their parents,” said Kate Bennett, chief of development for the Boston Housing Authority, which oversees the city’s public housing.
Career-focused courses will be offered to about 150 adults. Another 700 can enroll in programs on parenting, financial stability, and nutrition.
Officials also envision that the center will improve the well-being of Bromley-Heath’s 1,800 residents. More than 40 percent of adults do not have a high school diploma.
“There’s so much going on in that community; they need a catalyst for change,” said state Representative Jeffrey Sanchez.
Sanchez said that when he was 4, he enrolled in the Associated Early Care and Education center in the Mission Main housing development after his Spanish-speaking family moved from New York City.
“It’s where I learned ¬English,” he said. “I hope more children who are in the same situation that I was in can ¬access programs like this.”
Matt Rocheleau can be reached at mjrochele@gmail.com.

© 2012 The New York Times Company
URL: http://bostonglobe.com/metro/2012/11/01/bromley-heath-housing-complex-get-million-learning-center-that-focuses-entire-families/qy1lDAdB6OZpMGmbMTWuZJ/story.html

SourceThe Boston Globe (Boston.Com Metro)