BY LISA STAYTON
MOUNTAIN CITIZEN
INEZ — Students at Martin County Area Technology Center are transforming a bus into a classroom that will bring services to preschool students who do not currently attend Head Start or Preschool in the county.
The Martin County Board of Education and the Kentucky Department of Education agreed to implement the mobile learning bus for students ages 3-5.
“We expect the bus to be ready for use in Fall of 2023,” Dena James, Martin County School District Special Education director, said.
James told the BOE in a meeting Monday that ATC students had removed all the seats from the bus and installed the flooring. The students were working on the roof to install heating and cooling.
“We are just waiting on the furniture to make it look like a school classroom,” said James. “Our ATC will install it.”
James reported that Head Start director Michelle Harless has been working with all Head Start classrooms and letting students nominate names for the bus.
“They’re also coming up with themes for how they want the bus decorated,” said James. “We’re trying to get student input and have had a lot of T. Rex and unicorn nominees. We’ll see what wins and put that in the paper.”
A preschool teacher would be traveling with the mobile classroom.
Each day of the week, the bus will have a different location throughout the community and be available between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m.
When the bus is ready to roll, James will announce a schedule of times and locations.
She said the mobile classroom would provide the following:
•Portable, high-quality learning opportunities for preschool-aged children living in rural communities
•Scheduled monthly stops throughout the community providing services to preschool-aged children
•Convenient preschool screening opportunities, which will help in the early identification of areas of concern
•Curriculum-based standards-driven activities, which will be informed by screening results, taught to students and shared with families at early learning bus stop locations
•Family education on the importance of early learning, teachable moments through developmentally appropriate lessons, coaching, support systems and resources
•Community Engagement (partnering with public libraries, food pantries, Cabinet for Health and Family Services, and local health departments)
James also said the early learning bus project would:
•Increase preschool enrollment in Martin County
•Increase the number of students ready for kindergarten as measured by Kindergarten Readiness Brigance Screening Scores, classroom level assessments and behavior data
•Grow and develop support for caregiver groups by providing resources as measured by caregiver/family surveys
•Increase family and community engagement as measured by participation numbers at the designated bus destinations
•Improve early identification of students needing referral to special education as measured by Child Find screenings, thus reducing the number of students inappropriately identified for special education services
•Improve student behavior (i.e., reduce the number of students identified with challenging behaviors) because of social-emotional learning activities delivered in mobile settings, as documented in lesson plan goals