For more than 50 years, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh Head Start has helped educate and engage northeast Wisconsin children and their families.
That work continues today—even in the midst of a global pandemic.
“I’m so proud of the creativity and ingenuity of our teachers in finding these unique ways to connect with children and families,” said Lynn Hammen, the director of UW Oshkosh Head Start, which has continued its mission this spring with minimal interruption. “The teachers really jumped on it.”
UW Oshkosh Head Start helps children at risk of falling behind their peers get prepared for school.
Head Start programs are a free service provided for families at or below the federal poverty level. They offer early childhood programming, classroom curriculum and many services, including mental health, nutrition and disability.
UWO Head Start also gives University students experience opportunities in fields like early childhood education and social work, among others.
Like so many other educational programs and institutions at the moment, UWO Head Start—a partnership between the University and the federal Head Start program—was forced to transition on the fly from its regular day-to-day, in-person operations to helping little ones and their families from a distance last month.
Teachers, like children, learn on the fly
“We’d done zero teaching remotely, where as some college instructors may have done some remote teaching before. That’s just not something you do in early childhood,” Hammen said.
UWO Head Start closed its nine sites the week of March 16, impacting about 500 children across Winnebago, Outagamie, Calumet and Shawano counties. It was uncharted territory for the program that aims to give a boost to children, mostly 4-year-olds, who are at risk of falling behind their peers before they start kindergarten.
Determined to stay the course, the program transitioned to providing support from afar. Children were sent home with at-home learning kits. Teachers are reaching out daily with ideas for educational activities, sometimes through texts or emails, sometimes calls or video chats. Some are filming read-alouds, others their own musical numbers.
“One teacher actually made a little teaching corner in her home so that she could start each day by doing some of the same kinds of things she would do in her classroom,” Hammen said. “She’s video taping that. It’s just super, super creative.”
Much more than schoolwork
Head Start also is continuing its services that go beyond the children’s education. For example, many of the kids would typically get two of their three core meals while at one of the Head Start sites. Now families have to find ways to make up that difference, so they’ve given help connecting with programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) or Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC).
Family resource specialists are connecting weekly with families to see to it they have adequate support.
UW Oshkosh Head Start teachers provided many children with at-home learning kits to help them learn and stay busy during the pandemic.
“One of the things that sets us apart from what K-12 systems or other early learning systems might be doing is the fact that we are a comprehensive service provider,” Hammen said. “That means we don’t think only about the education of the child, we think about the whole family. So we have family resource specialists who are also making calls once a week or connecting once a week to make sure that a family’s needs are being met.”
Something else being addressed: the pandemic. UWO Head Start is working with families to make plans in case somebody in the home gets sick or other problems brought on by the coronavirus come up. Like so many conversations had in recent weeks, these are times unlike anything else that’s come up since UWO Head Start launched back in 1967 in the basement of Swart Hall.
There were different challenges then. There’ll be different challenges ahead.
The Head Start team will continue to do its best to meet them.
“Head Start staff never cease to amaze me by their dedication and commitment to children and families,” said Kelly Butzlaff, UWO Head Start’s associate director of parent, family, community engagement. “While none of this is done face-to-face, the same heart is put into it as if the children and families were coming into our classrooms.”
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