Rotary Rag 07.09.14

Rotary Rag 07.09.14

Quote: “It is well that there is nothing in Rotary so sacred that it cannot be set aside in favor of things better.” Paul Harris, Founder of Rotary

Guests: Chloe Learey, Alex Meima , Alexa Secrest, Aviva Wortman, Jennifer Moyse, Mark Loevy-Reyes

Ali will be greeter next week.

Announcements

Dinner raffle in progress. We almost have all the gift certificates lined up.

Rotary raffle tickets for the other club need to be back to Linda by July 23 if you took some to sell.

Consideration of the pledge: Todd raised the question of whether we should recite the pledge of allegiance at the beginning of the meeting. Many new members nationally have questioned the recitation of the pledge in their respective countries. Rotary is an international organization, so that is also something to consider. Todd asked that we talk with him and/or send him an email with our personal thoughts and any/all opinions. We will hope to have a decision at our Club Assembly on August 13.

New member induction: The group welcomed Aviva Wortman, Jennifer Moyse and Nick DuBois as official new members!

Birthdays: We wished Marcy R. a happy birthday.

Cards: 8 of clubs. Then we re-drew for reasons I cannot explain, and it was the 2 of clubs and we were losers.

Bowl of Life

The bowl is getting thin—add your items!
“My mom bought my first beer when I was 18.” Kate started us off guessing Kevin, to Marcy R., to Ralph, to Dan, to Jason, to Tristam, to Jerry, to Ross, to Jon S. At first he was unsure if it was him. He clarified that it wasn’t his first beer, but she did buy him a beer. He claims he did not put it in the bowl.

Brags

Ralph’s daughter, Christina, has a part in A Chorus Line at the Weston Playhouse. Take a drive and go see it!

Jill mentioned the House Hunters that was on last night featuring her buddies Fred Noyse, Tim Wessel and Kathy Urfer. It’s on HGTV. There were great shots of Brattleboro! Check your local listings for repeats.

Sandy L.’s puppy Eddy has become a clam retriever!

Will and Tina celebrated 1-30 and decided to do something different, inspired by Jesse Corum’s memorial service. They bought a kayak and decided to embrace life like he did.

Sadie bragged for Jesse Corum and passed the envelope for donations to the scholarship in his name at the noon Rotary club.

Val’s daughter is almost finished with her ROTC training and told them that 100 people she is training with had heat exhaustion. She did have a bit of heat exhaustion herself. She beat the guys on marksmanship.

Val and John were at La Brasserie in Manchester celebrating a birthday of a friend, which was great. And on the way out of town, they saw a gigantic bear.

Speaker: Chloe Learey, Director of the Winston Prouty Center

Chloe has been director at Winston Prouty for 7 years, has been in Brattleboro for 20 years, and is the parent of a teen and pre-teen.

Winston Prouty has been in existence since 1969 when it was founded by Senator Prouty. The center focuses on inclusion and diversity in the early learning center (serving 50 families with children ages 14 months-K) and in the community based services they offer. They are the fiscal agent for Children’s Integrated Services in our community, providing family support, early intervention and nursing services (CIS). They partner with HCRS to provide Early Childhood and Family Mental Health and with Windham Child Care Association to provide Specialized Child Care services. They are located across from Living Memorial Park.

Early childhood has recently been a focus on many levels. At the federal level, President Obama has talked about the importance of the early years and programs like Head Start. This year, Vermont was named as a recipient of the Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge grant, which will bring $37 million dollars over 5 years to build the infrastructure to support young children in our state. All that is to say, now is the time to invest and really broaden people’s understanding of how importance of the early years.

There are 3 important statistics to know: 1) by the age of 3 80% of a child’s brain has developed; 2) by the age of 5, 90% of a child’s brain has developed—all before a child enters school; 3) for every dollar we spend on the early years, we see a return of 10%. Right now, most of our public monies are spent on school age children. It’s not that we can’t have an impact later in life, but it will cost us more and might be less effective. We can pay early or pay more later.

Chloe showed a short video about the importance of the early years from Let’s Grow Kids (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5qHtRPaKeQ). Let’s Grow Kids is a public awareness funded by private donors in VT. Focus of the campaign is on whole child, not just early education. They are getting the word out that quality early care and education is really important; it is good to have universal pre-K for 3 and 4 year-olds (10 hours/week) as passed by the legislature this year. AND we also need to focus on other areas that impact the early years, like social development, physical health and family development. You can’t separate children from their families, so we need to make sure families have what they need and have the knowledge they need.  In VT, 40-50% not ready for Kindergarten. If children are ready for Kindergarten, studies show they have lower use of public benefits, have higher earning potential, and are healthier for the rest of their lives. There is a local Building Bright Futures council if you want to get involved locally in early childhood issues; they are welcoming new members (http://buildingbrightfutures.org/southeastern/about/).

Preschool expulsion rates are very high in our area, and a lot of the time, children are referred to the Winston Prouty Center. Chloe told the story of one 3 year old who when he came to Prouty, he would not say anything to anyone except “No touch! No touch!” He would not interact with people. Just last week, he leaned his head on Alfred’s (Hughes, Jr.) shoulder and said, “I love you. Let’s go play cards.” This was an amazing transformation because he was getting the support that he needed; we can make a difference in the lives of these children.

Val commented on the passage of the universal pre-K bill. Legislators heard a lot of testimony about the number of hours and 10 hours/week is hopefully just a start. Nick asked what ages were included in the pre-K bill and it is 3-5 years old. The idea is if kids are in quality programs, they will be more ready for school and be more successful; to qualify for the program, licensed early education providers must be at the 4 or 5 STARS level. WSESU has been offering pre-K for a while in our region, but there are areas that are not as well served across the state. Universal pre-K is optional for families, not required. Tristam talked about the cultural, intellectual and emotional barriers for some families to even bringing a child to early education centers and asked how to overcome some of those barriers. That is why it’s about more than early education, but about services that support families, engaging families where they are, and doing outreach with non-traditional partners (like pediatricians). Most parents want to be the best parents they can, so we need to help them have the resources they need to do that. Tristam followed up by reflecting that teachers in public schools seem to be inhibited in bringing up the “hard stuff” to protect the school. In early education, there are fewer restrictions and at WP, they are looking at ways to engage in the hard issues because they believe in building the whole family’s supports.

Dan asked about the number of programs with STARS in our region?  Of the licensed centers in the Brattleboro AHS district, 100% are participating in STARS, and 35% of the registered home providers are participating; including all licensed and regulated programs, 63% are participating. Of the 84 regulated programs and centers in the district, 14 programs have 3 STARS, 15 have 4 STARS and 13 have 5 STARS (http://dcf.vermont.gov/sites/dcf/files/pdf/cdd/stars/STARS%20%20annual%20Report%20FY2013.pdf). You can look here for information about each licensed and regulated early education provider in Windham County and see how many STARS they have:  http://dcf.vermont.gov/cdd/stars/list_of_providers/windham; for general information about STARS, go here: http://dcf.vermont.gov/cdd/stars. Carmen noted that UWWC shifted funding to support program development instead of individual child care programs a few years ago. The Quality Fund for Early Education has been showing outcomes in terms of helping programs maintain and increase their STARS level.

Everyone thanked Chloe for her presentation. She got her mug.

Have a great week!

Respectfully submitted, Sadie Fischesser