The new Ponca City Public Schools’ Pre-Kindergarten Center is providing important skills to enable students to achieve long-term academic success.

Early childhood education and school readiness is essential to prepare children to succeed in an increasingly competitive global society.

Located at 1615 North Seventh Street, the 4-year-old students are all smiles and eager to explain how much they love school. The teachers at the center say they love all the prekindergarten teachers being in the same building, because it allows them to collaborate.

Barbara Davis is the principal at the new pre-K center. 

“I am enjoying the younger children. They are eager to learn and want to give hugs all day.  When I compare them to the 8th graders, I realize they are similar in that they both want to learn, they both appreciate a smile and kind word, and both need to know someone cares about them,” Davis said

The center has 14 classes with a total enrollment of 223 students, Davis said.

“I expect that number to rise, because we still have new students enrolling weekly. We average15 students per class with one teacher and teacher assistant in every class," she said.

Safety is a priority at the center. Teachers are present and the door is opened at 7:30 a.m.

“We have a crossing guard each morning from 7:20 to 8 a.m. to help parents and students cross the street," Davis said. "There is a lot of traffic in the mornings with the high school also on Seventh street.  We don't have a crossing guard in the afternoon, because we dismiss at 2:20 and 2:30 p.m.  We have two dismissal times to help with the parking situation.  We also dismiss from four different exits around the building to help with the parking. The parent or designated pick-up person must come in and sign the children out each day as a safety precaution.”

Superintendent Dr. David Pennington said there were several reasons the district decided to open the pre-K center.

“We were concerned about academic quality of our 4-year-old programs, and we wanted to provide real stability and standardization across the district," he said.  "We also knew there were things 4-year-olds needed, like age-appropriate playground equipment and toys. We couldn’t afford to provide these materials on a district-wide basis, but we could customize the experience for them and create a vibrant program at the new center.

“Another reason was to free up space in our buildings," Pennington said. “Someday I hope we can go back to enforcing class size limits and providing more money to schools. When and if that happens, we would not have had room in our buildings. We needed to create classroom space to allow us to hire teachers to get our class sizes down when/if the money comes back.

"Moving all pre-K classes to Washington creates space for us to do that at the elementary sites. If the district wins this ad valorem lawsuit we are in, we will have some money for 10 to 12 years to allow us to do this. We do not want to place portable buildings at our sites again," he said.

"Since we are finished using the building for major renovations, we wanted to use Washington as a school again. It is well built and well maintained and we wanted to put it back into use rather than moth-ball or sell it,” Pennington said.

Beverly Barger is a 40+ year veteran kindergarten teacher for the district. She was asked if she could see a significant difference in the kids coming into kindergarten who had pre-Kindergarten and the ones who didn’t.

“Back in the 1970s and 1980s, I did not see much of a difference at all because Kindergarten was basically the same as pre-Kindergarten," Barger said. "However, in the early 1990s, the curriculum changed to more academic-based and computers were brought into the classrooms. Students coming in with no pre-Kindergarten were suddenly behind and were struggling all year to catch up. By the late 1990s, they were lost. There was no time to differentiate for kids in the '90s.

"I found myself working harder than ever trying to make sure every student met the academic standards required," Barger said. "It became evident that we could not achieve all of the requirements in a half-day program, so the district moved from half-day to all-day pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten.”

In the era of test-based accountability, Kindergarten has truly changed, emphasizing academics rather than socialization and structured play.

Research shows that students who enter Kindergarten with no preschool are significantly behind. In today’s pre-K classroom, children are being exposed to skills that they would have typically learned in the traditional model of Kindergarten, such as learning how to use scissors or write. Preschoolers are even learning how to write their alphabet and how to read.

By putting their children in preschools, parents are helping their children’s academic future.

It has been reported that “children who attend quality preschools score higher on kindergarten readiness screening tests” and “school performance continues to remain higher for those students who attended preschool,” Barger said. "School is the way to success in our economy; therefore, by starting academics earlier, children are getting ahead."