Avoyelles ranks ‘at risk’ in factors affecting early childhood education
When a child enters kindergarten in Avoyelles Parish, he/she is more likely to be behind, remain behind and fail to achieve in school and beyond than children in most parishes in the state, a comprehensive study of several socio-economic indicators shows.
Avoyelles is rated a “high risk” parish in early childhood development by a “2016 Early Childhood Risk and Reach in Louisiana” report, Avoyelles School District Superintendent Blaine Dauzat said. The purpose of the report is to give government and private participants in early childhood education the information necessary for them to make policy and funding decisions to distribute financial and personnel resources.
Since early childhood is a key period of development, it has a profound impact on whether a child reaches his/her full potential, Dauzat told School Board members recently. For that reason, the report concluded it is imperative to monitor specific indicators of early childhood well-being.
Avoyelles had an overall risk score of 3.33 -- one of the worst in the state. Only four of the state’s 64 parishes had a higher score of 3.5. The state average is 2.48.
Cameron Parish had the best score at 1.00. The report looked only at the 64 parishes’ statistics and did not indicate a national average.
The study reported 2,780 children in the parish under the age of 5 and looked at 12 risk indicators affecting those children -- five economic, five health and two educational.
Avoyelles rated “high risk” in six factors: births to single mothers with less than a high school education; median income; births to teenage mothers; uninsured children aged 0-5; and unduplicated, confirmed allegations of abuse or neglect of children aged 0-5.
The parish was rated “moderate to high” in four: unemployment; children 0-5 in poverty; low birth-weight births; and pre-literacy skills.
Avoyelles’ best outcomes were in infant mortality rates and the number of young children attending Pre-K or a high-quality child care facility, being rated low-moderate in those factors.
The report also found that Avoyelles takes part in six of the seven available publicly-funded early childhood programs.
NOT SURPRISED
“These statistics don't surprise me,” Dauzat said. “We have to spend so much time trying to catch our students up that we struggle to keep up with state averages on test scores.”
Poverty is a major factor that creates conditions that can affect several risk indicators, including unsafe environments, poor nutrition, limited access to health care and low-quality early education opportunities. These factors can impact a child’s life that follows him through adulthood.
Challenges caused by poverty can be overcome with strong support from caring adults and the availability of high-quality programs in the community. Early intervention efforts can have significant payoffs for children and their families.
A disturbing statistic in the report is that Avoyelles had more than double the national average for child abuse/neglect.
“Pre-literacy skills” reflects the test results of children entering kindergarten. In Avoyelles, 31 percent of kindergartners reflected a need for “intensive intervention” to get up to kindergarten level.
“This is another example of the obstacles that we face -- yet we continue to get criticized,” Dauzat noted.
The parish’s most promising positive result was that 50.3 percent of 3- and 4-year-olds were in a publicly funded Pre-K or Head Start program.
“We spend federal monies, grant monies and some local monies on early childhood education, but it’s just not enough,” Dauzat added.
Approximately 19.1 percent of 4-year-olds are served by the school district’s Title I federal program for low-income and other children at risk of academic failure.
Avoyelles has chosen to use these federal dollars to provide Pre-K classes.
Other early childhood programs in place in the parish include the EarlySteps early intervention program for children under 3 with developmental delays or with physical/ mental conditions likely to result in developmental delays; 8(g) Preschool program for economically disadvantaged children at risk of not being prepared for kindergarten; the Cecil J. Picard Early Childhood program, a six-hour-a-day Pre-K program; and Maternal Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program, which has two models -- Nurse-Family Partnership and Parents as Teachers -- for Medicaid-eligible first-time mothers to improve parenting practices, early detection for developmental delays, health issues and school readiness.