International Contact-Part 2

            I finally made contact with someone!  It dawned on me that one of the facilitators of my Cultural Competence Collaborative has international contacts.  I was correct and pointed me in the direction of the Bahamas.  I made contact with Ms. Smith who is the director of a school that serves children from preschool to 9^th grade.  I was able to learn a lot about excellence and equity in the Bahamas.

            Since I had studied school readiness for my Discussion, I talked to Ms. Smith about the concept.  She is able to see how children transition from the preschool years to the primary years due to the wide range at her school.  Like I learned in my Discussion, school readiness is dependent upon standards and achievement gaps.  The Bahamas have not been able to hide from any of these issues.  She admitted that the government was a strong supporter of the early childhood years because they realize their importance.  However, this knowledge and support has not translated into policies and laws for early childhood like she would like to see.  Standards are not what they should be.  Due to the low standards, there are variances in the quality of schools.  Ms. Smith runs a school that keeps high standards but knows of others that do not and the children that attend that school.  Those children attend the school because that is all their family can afford.  Ms. Smith is able to keep her children school ready and close the achievement gaps due to high standards and her school.  It is easy to help guide that huge transition when everything is under the same roof.  She also commented that she works with dedicated individuals that help contribute to her successes in this area.  She acknowledges that she is lucky especially compared to other schools on her island.  The biggest issue that she continues to face is polices and government support.  According to her over the past few years, this has greatly improved.  The government has created a Ministry advancing early childhood with a program called INSPIRE.  INSPIRE was created to help children who cannot get access to early childhood programs.  This program provides materials and other services to these children.  She is excited to see how this program improves the lives of these children.