More than half of students from low‑income households
Data about students' economic need comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, via our partners at MDR Education.
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My school is located in mid to southern Illinois. We are located in a small rural farming community, which has a very high poverty rate (that continues to rise) with an increasing amount of homeless children. My students are five and six-year-old kindergarten students who have lots of energy and are very eager to learn. They are excited about coming to school and want to do their best, despite their home situations. However, for many, kindergarten is their first experience with school since budgets have caused our district to drastically downsize the preschool programs. Due to hard economic times and parents who do not always make education a top priority (or the parents that do not understand what it means for a child to learn kindergarten readiness skills and/or know how to help) many kids are coming to school with a very weak foundation of early literacy skills. For many, the only educational early literacy and math skills they get is during their time within school.
About my class
My school is located in mid to southern Illinois. We are located in a small rural farming community, which has a very high poverty rate (that continues to rise) with an increasing amount of homeless children. My students are five and six-year-old kindergarten students who have lots of energy and are very eager to learn. They are excited about coming to school and want to do their best, despite their home situations. However, for many, kindergarten is their first experience with school since budgets have caused our district to drastically downsize the preschool programs. Due to hard economic times and parents who do not always make education a top priority (or the parents that do not understand what it means for a child to learn kindergarten readiness skills and/or know how to help) many kids are coming to school with a very weak foundation of early literacy skills. For many, the only educational early literacy and math skills they get is during their time within school.