The Southwest Early Childhood Center of the Jefferson City Public School District has been recognized as one of the best early childhood programs in the state.
The center was a finalist for the Missouri School Boards' Association FutureBuilders Early Childhood Education Program of the Year Award for having an innovative approach to early childhood education.
First place went to the Northwest Early Childhood Learning Center in House Springs.
Southwest Principal Nicole Langston said the center was created seven years ago to help prepare children for kindergarten after the district noticed many children were coming into school with developmental, physical and behavioral problems.
The center has six early childhood programs that aid children with special needs, students living in poverty, teen mothers and gifted students.
Langston said faculty screens incoming children to identify any potential problems a child could face in the classroom. They also have behaviorists who can do home visits to work with families on appropriate discipline or other issues the family may face, she said.
"We're hoping we're changing the lives of children and families because we're in the homes of these different families," Langston said. "We can teach them all day in school, but it has to carry over at home."
For example, Langston said they had one boy who had been kicked out of five day cares. In a five-minute screening with the boy, he had 27 instances of bad behavior.
After attending the center for five months, the boy learned how to self-regulate his emotions. Instead of responding to a situation by screaming, hitting or kicking someone, he developed social skills to voice his emotions calmly.
Last year, the center had 3,603 home visits and 568 health and developmental screenings. Of those screenings, faculty found 265 "delays" in either developmental or behavioral learning and referred 67 cases to doctors outside of the center.
"If it weren't for that screening, all those kids would have gone straight into kindergarten," Langston said. "Now that we have the center, instead of teachers having to work through social skills in the first couple months of the school year, they can get straight into academics."
Seven years ago, the center started with about 40 children and now have more than 300 attending regularly, she said. The program is also tuition-free for those who qualify.
The MSBA recognition is just one of the center's recent awards. It received a $100,000 grant from the Children's Trust Fund, which will go toward family classes offered three times a month.
This summer, the center was given a one-time grant of $8,500 from United Way to provide "conscious discipline" classes for anyone in the community.
Since it first opened, the center has received seven national awards of recognition, she said.
"I think the entire Southwest family feels honored," Langston said. "We feel sort of like we're the Marines. We're the first on the beach, changing lives for students and families."