HOUSTON – Liliana Gonzalez logged onto a webinar Friday morning ready to ask questions about pre-K. Careful not to waste the opportunity to connect directly with early childhood education experts, within minutes she put her fingers on the keyboard to start the conversation in the chat.
How do people find out about pre-K programs?
Meron Tekle, Good Reason Houston managing director of insights, provided links to local resources in the chat before directing Gonzalez’s question to the panelist.
Gonzalez was among the parents, school staff, and education leaders who participated in Good Reason Houston’s “Power of Pre-K” webinar Friday, which addressed why quality pre-K programs matter. Dr. Ana Trevino-Godfrey, director of Prelude Music Classes for Children, and Dr. Haneefah Shuaibe-Peters, executive director of Child Education Center, highlighted how high-quality pre-K not only prepares students for K-12 achievement, but sets the foundations for life skills.
“It’s not just about academics. It’s not just about a community of teachers who are ready to welcome children in a space that’s prime for learning,” Trevino-Godfrey said during the webinar. “There is so much that is going on in a child’s mind, in their brain, and in their soul in terms of understanding their own emotions, understanding how to self-regulate which is so important. We know so many grownups who are having trouble with this and it starts the first few years of life.”
Good Reason Houston aims to boost pre-K enrollment from 38% to 50% of eligible students over the next three years, which means 8,500 students need to be enrolled. Earlier this month, Good Reason Houston co-hosted a family festival with Houston ISD to register pre-K students in a critically under-enrolled part of Houston.
“Houston should lead the nation in terms of quality public education for all,” Good Reason Houston CEO Cary Wright said. “That starts with making sure families from all across Houston know about, understand the value of, and take action to enroll their child in a free, public pre-k program.”
To learn more about pre-K options in your area, visit www.prekhouston.org, powered by Good Reason Houston.
To access the resources shared on our webinar, check out these links:
- ABCs of Pre-K: A Parents Guide to Early Learning
- Choosing a Pre-K Program for Your Child
- Getting My Child Ready for Kindergarten: What my child should know and be able to do at the end of pre-K
- Houston Kindergarten Readiness Analysis
- Find out if your family is eligible for free pre-K here
