Achievement gap targeted in Leopold neighborhood with new economic and education initiatives

A family involved in the Early Childhood Initiative, Photo courtesy of ECIThirty minutes before shots rang out near Leopold Elementary School Jan. 16, which sent the school into lockdown but resulted in no reported injuries, County Executive Joe Parisi was on the school grounds delivering a hopeful message.

Parisi was announcing the opening of a new Leopold Early Childhood Initiative office, which he said will be instrumental in creating a better learning environment and closing the minority achievement gap. The fourth office in the program and the first in the Leopold neighborhood, the center will help families find jobs and housing, set goals, and prepare their children for kindergarten.

“The achievement gap cannot be closed by the schools alone and this office will coordinate the community response that is needed to help address this problem,” Parisi said in a press release.

The Early Childhood Initiative office is part of collaboration between Dane County and United Way, which split the cost for the center and for opening a Play and Learn site in the neighborhood.

Together, these projects target families with kids from birth to four years old and constitute what is dubbed the Leopold Early Childhood Zone.

While the achievement gap generally becomes apparent in state testing in elementary school, officials at Parisi’s office and United Way of Dane County said the foundation for the achievement gap is laid much earlier. The groups hope address the achievement gap by targeting young families in the Leopold neighborhood, a diverse community south of the Beltline and west of Fish Hatchery Road.

According to the City of Madison, in 2010, there were 244 family households in the neighborhood. In 2011, 122 families were living in poverty.

“If students start school behind, they usually never catch up,” Sarah Listug, spokesperson for United Way of Dane County, said. “A lot of these gaps really emerge in the early years, and if you can invest the time and resources in starting students at the same level, the chance of gaps emerging is really minimized.”

Operating out of a two-bedroom apartment on Leopold Way across from the elementary school, the Early Childhood Initiative (ECI) office shares a space with Joining Forces for Families. ECI already has one employee, who will eventually take on a full case-load of 30 parents who will work with her to find employment, according to ECI Program Coordinator Jennifer Grether.

Two other employees, one of whom is bilingual, will join the office to do broader case management with about 24 families, including in-home visits to help parents connect with their kids in healthy ways and prepare them for school.

“The point is to help build certain developmental milestones and emotional well-being,” Grether said. “Then they also do case management, talking about issues like whether a child has made it to their well-child check, or whether they made it to an employment appointment, or helping them find housing.”

The ECI office will also refer families to United Way’s new Play and Learn site in the neighborhood, which offers a space for kids to come with their parents to participate in activities similar to a pre-school.

United Way estimates that in Dane county, 38 percent of children start kindergarten without the skills they need to effectively benefit from school. Their goal is to ensure that 75 percent of students in Dane county have these skills when they enter kindergarten.

Together the projects cost $150,000. Listug said the program’s cost will be recouped for the county by preventing kids from turning to crime or dropping out of school, as well as preparing them to be productive tax-paying citizens. A Harvard study estimated the return per dollar on early childhood programs to be $4 to $9.

Listug said the initiatives intentionally target ages that other programs miss, preparing children for a better start in elementary school when other services begin, such as the Boys & Girls Clubs and school programs.

“The collaboration is really making a cohesive line in services that has never been done before,” Listug said.