Eastern Shore schools address kindergarten readiness

MARYLAND – In the Old Line State, kindergarten readiness assessment results are showing progress after the 2018 readiness assessment.

Here on the shore one county has the largest amount of students who are ready for that next step after pre-k.

Worcester County Public Schools are number one in the state at 66%.

47 ABC spoke with Worcester County’s Early Childhood coordinator who tells is their success was as a joint effort to make sure children are all set in areas including math, social foundations, literacy, and physical well being or motor skills.

Todd Hall said, “Without question it is a celebration of really a lot of people and our school district.”

Another school system on The Shore, Dorchester county public schools, has 40% of students there are demonstrating readiness.

47 ABC spoke to superintendent Dr. Diana Mitchell who tells us to address this 26 percentage-point difference.

Her schools are focusing on those unstructured daycare settings.

Dr. Mitchell said, “Our program directors are working with families that have children in a home setting, maybe in a head start program, or maybe with another family member in a non structured setting. We’re really trying to reach out to children who are in those unstructured daycare centers.”

47 ABC is told that once they reach out to those families, they hope to increase numbers of children in Dorchester County Public School’s pre-k programs.

Dr. Mitchell says right now two-thirds of children are enrolled, meaning one-third are coming into kindergarten from an unstructured setting.

From there, which those teachers have to adapt to to make sure each student is getting the care he or she needs.