‘El Busesito,’ the city’s first-ever mobile preschool, will be rolling into West Philly soon
The service, dubbed El Busesito (little bus), is the first of its kind in the city, and likely the only one in the state. It's pre-K for low-income kids being cared for by grandmothers and neighbors.
Children have only about 1,800 days from birth to the start of kindergarten. A Norris Square nonprofit wants to make the most of that time.
It’s rolling out a specially equipped van to provide mobile preschool classes for low-income children in West Philadelphia, scheduled to start the week of Sept. 25.
The service, dubbed El Busesito (little bus), is the first of its kind in the city, and is likely the only one in the state, according to Michelle Carrera, executive director of Xiente, formerly the Norris Square Community Alliance, in Kensington.
“This is prekindergarten education for the kids being taken care of by grandmothers and neighborhood ladies in their homes,” Carrera said.
Such children often don’t have the opportunity to attend preschool classes, and their informal childcare givers — family, friends, or neighbors — typically aren’t able to provide the kind of preparation youngsters need to be ready for kindergarten.
“By the time these kids hit kindergarten, they’re already behind,” said Carrera, 45, who grew up in poverty in the projects of San Juan, Puerto Rico.
The $500,000 Busesito project — expected to expand to Northeast Philadelphia and other areas — is not funded by the city. Neither is it part of the School District of Philadelphia, or a charter school, or a licensed day-care center.
It’s being underwritten by the William Penn Foundation as well as by Vanguard. Instruction is based on curriculum provided by Learning Without Tears, a Maryland-based educational company.
“A good amount of children in Philadelphia are being cared for by informal providers in their neighborhoods while parents work,” said Kellie Brown, senior program officer at the William Penn Foundation. “For the sake of equity, we wanted the children to be ready for kindergarten.”
Families of the students, ages 3 to 5, will not be charged a fee. They’ll receive two-and-one-half hours of instruction a day, two days a week. Focus will be on numbers, letters, colors, and shapes. The program will start with 32 children. The nonprofit has already contacted caregivers in the neighborhood about the van.
Modeled after mobile preschool vehicles in Colorado, the van is retrofitted to include desks, chairs, and shelving. It will be parked on the properties of schools, churches, and community agencies, Carrera said, which will provide children places to use the bathroom.
Xiente is partnering with New York-based ParentChild+, a national organization that works to bolster early literacy and school readiness through home visits in “high poverty, marginalized communities,” according to Malkia Singleton Ofori-Agyekum, the nonprofit’s Pennsylvania state director.
“Our goal is increasing parent-child verbal interaction and school readiness skills,” Ofori-Agyekum said.
ParentChild+ is working locally with Public Health Management Corporation, a Philadelphia nonprofit. Twice a week, Ofori-Agyekum said, early-learning specialists are sent to homes bearing a book or toy as both a gift and a model to help parents communicate more effectively with their children, and to get youngsters better prepared for academia.
Beyond preschool, Xiente is expecting to initiate mobile services next year to help people in low-income communities deal with taxes and personal finances.
Having served the Kensington area for around 40 years, Xiente is finding that rapid gentrification is pushing out people in poverty, with neighborhood median household incomes doubling from around $20,000 to $40,000 in just three years, according to Carrera.
“We now have to look beyond Norris Square to help people,” she added. “Our focus is poverty. And El Busesito will be in West Philadelphia, because that’s where the need is.”