At-risk four-year-olds are target of attention: Tuscaloosa City Schools / Alabama.

Tuscaloosa City Schools in Tuscaloosa, Ala., and various organizations have joined efforts to provide pre-kindergarten education to help at-risk children get off to a quick start when they begin school.

Children are considered academically at risk if they score below the 50th percentile in either the language or concepts portion of the Developmental Indicators for the Assessment of Learning, or DIAL test, which children take before the school year begins.

The goal of the program is to identify and provide pre-kindergarten education for all four-year-olds deemed academically at risk in the city of Tuscaloosa, and the mission is to offer the best education and health services available for all academically at-risk children and their families. Tuscaloosa City Schools was named the Alabama winner in the 2008 National Civic Star Award competition as a result of the program.

This latest program builds on earlier initiatives of the Tuscaloosa City Schools Board of Education in gaining funding for programs to meet the early-learning needs of students. In 1992, the school system worked to establish preschool classes for at-risk students with very little funding. In 2000, a branch of the local United Way, the Alexis de Tocqueville Society, spearheaded by two local businessmen, allocated funds for four preschool classes to implement the nationally recognized Success by Six program. A Jump Start program, funded by United Way, was added in the summer of 2005 as a prelude to kindergarten for students who have had little or no preschool experience.

During the past five years, this group has contributed more than $857,000 to the pre-K effort in the Tuscaloosa City and Tuscaloosa County school systems, serving more than 2,200 children. As a result of these cooperative efforts, there are 14 pre-kindergarten units serving more than 230 children in the Tuscaloosa City Schools.

In 2005, the newly elected mayor established a goal of providing highly effective pre-K programs for all academically at-risk children in the city. The Mayor's Pre-K Task Force was created, including school teachers, school administrators and community members. The group has researched best curriculum practices, funding possibilities and community resources while helping to make pre-K programs a mission of the city.

Organizations and individuals committing resources and volunteers to the ongoing effort are the University of Alabama and Stillman College. University officials have recruited graduates and provided three weeks of training for them to serve as aides in pre-K classrooms. University students who serve as pre-K Jump Start volunteers receive training, free housing and three hours of academic course credit. Work-study interns serve at least 10 hours each week in the pre-K classrooms and service-learning volunteers provide needed assistance. Services are provided through university departments, such as early childhood development, speech and hearing, advertising/marketing and social work. Business community involvement includes a private donor who contributed $10,000 toward the program. Through the mayor's initiative, the City Council provided $73,000 toward the salaries of a pre-K coordinator and five additional pre-K teachers for the school system. The mayor planned to recommend funding of $300,000 for five additional pre-K teachers for 2008.

The 2005 pre- and post-test assessments for seven pre-K Jump Start classes indicated outstanding progress, both cognitively and socially in most children. At the beginning of the program, students scored at an average percentile of 24 while on the post-test, students' average percentile score was 42. In 2006, the average percentile ranking for four classes of students was 24 and the post-test ranking was 39.

For more information, contact Superintendent Joyce Levey at Tuscaloosa City Schools, P O. Box 038991, Tuscaloosa, AL 35403, or call [phone]. Levey's e-mail address is [e-mail].