As the superintendent for the American Falls School District, I am charged with ensuring our schools provide a quality education for our children so they can lead happy, productive lives. One of the most effective things we can do as a school district to contribute to the success of our students is to make sure they have access to quality early learning opportunities.

We started our early learning initiative with three goals: help and support parents in their role as their child’s first and most important teacher, improve the quality of our existing early learning programs, and expand the number of students attending preschool. With combined efforts of several dedicated individuals and support from the community, our students now have this access, and our community can serve as a model to others.

The story of our community’s early learning programs started a few years back when our district started the “Read Talk Play Everyday” initiative designed to help parents understand the importance of their role in developing the cognitive, social and emotional skills their children will need to be successful in school and life.

The popularity and success of this program spurred many people in our community to look for ways to expand access to early learning.

Over the past year, we worked with parents, teachers, school administrators, local officials, existing pre-school and childcare programs, and local organizations to find a way to expand and improve access to these opportunities. We partnered with the United Way of Southeastern Idaho in writing grants to fund our efforts.

With guidance and support from the Idaho Association for the Education for Young Children, we utilized existing community resources and infrastructure to develop quality programs which are giving our students the foundations they need to be successful as they move into kindergarten and beyond. We worked with our local preschools providing their teachers with curriculum and the training they needed to become great early learning educators

We have been able to double the number of students attending a quality preschool. We will continue to look at ways to increase the opportunity for more students, knowing this is one of the most important ways for us to prevent an achievement gap.

American Falls, with the creation of our early learning collaborative, now has a network of programs which are providing the children we serve not only the academic foundation for all future learning, but also the environment to develop socially and emotionally. Together, we are providing opportunities for our children to be ready and excited to learn when they enter kindergarten. I can see the value of these programs every day in the children who have had the benefit of participating in them.

Our children deserve every opportunity to succeed, and American Falls is fortunate to have the early learning programs which are available. I am confident as we see the first classes of these students progress through our school system, we will be able to gauge how much better their academic performance is because of their early learning experiences. I want others to know how worthy an investment of time and money this effort has been, and encourage other communities to invest in their children’s education sooner, rather than later.

Randy Jensen has been an Educator in American Falls for 36 years as a teacher, principal and now the superintendent. He was the 2005 Met Life National Principal of the Year and the 2016 AMLE National Educator of the Year.