School resource officer James Summers responds to a question from Emersyn Carpenter, 4, as he speaks with the children in the lab preschool program at the Westfield High School. (Photo by Carl E. Hartdegen)
WESTFIELD – When Westfield High School resource officer James Summers deals with students at the school he usually can stand up straight to speak with the teenaged pupils but, when he goes to one classroom, he has to bend down to talk with the four and five year-old children there.
There are about 1,500 pupils at the school but, unbeknownst perhaps to many city residents, 15 of those children are preparing for kindergarten, not for the start of college.
Those children attend the Children’s Corner Laboratory Preschool where they learn basic social and emotional skills, fine and gross motor skills, as well as developing speech, language and cognitive abilities from students who are learning how to teach young children.
The pre-school children also get visitors, about once a month, and Summers was the most recent visitor to the class. Other visitors this spring will include a dentist during dental health month and a firefighter who will bring a fire engine to show the children.
Summers spoke with children about basic safety issues the need to know such as their address, their parent’s phone numbers and who to approach if they need help.
But most of the teaching in the classroom is done by high school students.
Those students, who are required to have completed two high school child development classes, are supervised by teacher Debbie Auclair who said, “I find the most rewarding part of the program (is) to observe the preschool children enjoying the learning activities as they delight in learning new information and skills.”
She said that she also finds it rewarding “observing the high school student teacher’s excitement over seeing the learning and skill building they are responsible for in the preschool children.”
Auclair said that the high school student teachers are each assigned a “case study child” and are responsible for helping ‘their’ child adjust to the school environment and for gathering information about the child.
In addition, the student teachers learn how to prepare a lesson plan and actually teach lessons.
Westfield High School juniors Gienna DeGray, 16, and Alyssa Fleming, 17, made a cardboard police cruiser and fire engine to engage the children, including Karley Bullock, 5, at the school’s lab preschool. (Photo by Carl E. Hartdegen)
Auclair said that the program prepares the high school students for jobs immediately in a preschool situation and, based on feedback she has received from the staff at those facilities, said that the directors of the day care programs who have hired graduates of the program are very pleased with the preparation their new employees had received in school.
Auclair also said that the majority of her students pursue further education to prepare for careers working with children in the educational or medical fields.
The program operates on Tuesdays, Wednesday and Thursdays starting in October and extending until the end of May and follows the high school schedule in terms of vacations, school cancellations and other exclusion days.
Children are accepted for the preschool program on a first-come-first-served basis.
