REACH Project awarded grant

By Takara Gordon
Online Forty-Niner
Contributing Writer

This fall, the REACH Project (Readiness and Early Activities for Children from the Heart) at Cal State Long Beach was awarded a $50,000 grant by the S. Mark Taper Foundation.

REACH is a collaborative effort among the College of Health and Human Services and the College of Education since July 2002. Together, they use grant money for the REACH Project to better train and support early education teachers and students so they can help prepare children for kindergarten.

Sue Stanley, director of the REACH Project and chair of the Family and Consumer Sciences department at CSULB said, "The foundation's contribution will be used for the early childhood professionals to complete the ‘Early Steps for Reading Success' course, and it will allow them to attend quarterly meetings that will help these professionals stay updated on emergent literacy."

Literacy is an important issue to determine children's school readiness, therefore it is a main focus for the REACH Project.

REACH Project Manager, Chantal Lamourelle-Sims, stresses the necessity of also challenging early childhood professionals (ECPs) to obtain a higher level of education through the permit matrix. Currently, preschool teachers only need to take 12 units to begin working with the children. Project REACH extends opportunities for teachers to develop comprehensively so they can provide students with a seamless education because "preschool is the most informative span of time and if students are touched here, it will affect them throughout the rest of their education."

Lamourelle-Sims spends her days "out in the field helping to mentor teachers as much as possible." She does professional growth development sessions for teachers and implements all activities that will be provided to preschool students for the duration of the grant. Direct benefits for participating ECPs are opportunities to obtain grants for classroom supplies and equipment, better assessment of children's readiness for school, paid membership in key professional early education associations and stipends to reimburse them for related project courses.

REACH extends its services through partnerships with daycare centers in the 90806 ZIP code. Among the 177 centers in the area, only seven are accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). This accreditation is coveted by early childhood facilities and shows they are the cream of the crop. Young Horizons'Child Care North Pacific Site received its accreditation after involvement with REACH. CSULB is another accredited center.

Renee Hannan, director of development at Health and Human Services notes that such strides could not have been made without the contributions of organizations such as the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation which gave $1.3 million, The W.M. Keck Foundation which gave $100,000, The Confidence Foundation which gave $108,400, The Crail-Johnson Foundation which gave $25,000 last year and The S. Mark Taper Foundation which gave $50,000 this fall.

Hannan expresses gratitude to the donators of the project. "CSULB and our REACH community are so grateful for these foundations' leadership and support for early education opportunities."

The REACH program will continue through June 30, 2007. For Stanley, the grant, "helps us meet an important designated community need of making sure that every child has the opportunity to go to preschool."