Schools will open within the next three weeks.

Will your kindergarten student be prepared?

For those who participated in head start school programs, the time has come to assess how prepared your school-age child is. And if kindergarten is another year away, there are programs to help parents get prepared now.

Some parents adopted a wait-and-see attitude before enrollment in kindergarten programs. According to a recent story in the Eagle, kindergarten enrollment for the Butler Area School District dropped in 2020, but is slowly on the rise for the upcoming school year.

In 2019, the district had 430 students enrolled in kindergarten. That number dropped to 367 in 2020.

“We still have a lot of families waiting to see what next year is going to look like,” said Superintendent Brian White at a recent school board meeting. “If we get regulations like we did last year, I think families may prefer to wait another year to see if they can get a normal school experience for their kindergartners.”

With the new health and safety plans, schools will adopt their own COVID-19 mandates, based on what they hear and understand from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other federal and state sources.

But what about other preparations parents can make, including emotional?

“Children are born learners,” according to the early head start/home-based program available from Butler County Children’s Center/Early Learning Connections. “Children learn most from people they love: their parents. Parents are the experts on their own child. All parents deserve support in their parenting role.”

The program specifics indicate that diversity and cultural difference are valued, all families have strengths and “all parents want to be good parents.”

The children’s center program, PATHS (Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies), curriculum teaches four essential skills: emotional therapy, behavioral self-control, problem solving and social academic climate. It increases self-control in students as well as the ability of getting along with others by improving friendship skills. It enhances the children’s self-esteem and self-confidence and the ability to give and receive compliments.

Several schools plan events to get students acclimated. We applaud these efforts and wish students a happy, safe and memorable school year.

— AA