Tag: preschool

Research affirms full-day pre-K boosts attendance, but will Chicago make it more accessible?

Two new studies from the University of Chicago’s Consortium on School Research have confirmed what working parents already know – that when pre-kindergarten programs offer a full-day option, enrollment and attendance rates at those programs increase, especially among Black and Latinx families.  The research comes in the midst of widespread labor shortages, with women representing a disproportionate number of those…

Velma Thomas preschooler

Preschoolers Have the Least Access to Remote Learning

For years, most discussion of tech and young children’s learning has focused on whether screens are appropriate at all for preschoolers. But the pandemic and remote learning are forcing us to think differently about how electronic devices can help the youngest learners. I’m fortunate to know a local leader in creative use of technology with preschoolers. My friend Jessica Fong,…

What Is Chelsea Clinton Doing Reading A Picture Book in the Laundromat?

Today, Chelsea Clinton, vice chair of the Clinton Foundation, spent time at the Bubbleland laundromat on Fullerton, not far from Kelvyn Park, reading a picture book to preschoolers and their families. Her visit comes about a year after Chicago librarians began holding story time in laundromats around the city in an effort to reach out to families with young children…

Christopher House Breaks Ground on Innovative Middle School

As a toddler, Camilla Ruelas had a life-saving liver transplant. She’s now a sixth-grader at Christopher House Charter School, with her sights set on college at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana and later, medical school. “I hope to learn more about the human body and anatomy to become a doctor someday,” and perform those lifesaving transplants herself, she told a…