Families ready for preschool success with Parent Navigators

This spring, EMBARC and Woodlawn Early Childhood Center welcomed refugee and immigrant families, as well as Des Moines Public School (DMPS) staff members to ensure that every child in Des Moines has a chance to receive a quality preschool education.

EMBARC and DMPS registered 48 children for preschool throughout Des Moines, Johnston, and Urbandale through the two registration events as well as through EMBARC’s Access Center, Parent Navigators, and case management services. 

DMPS preschool registration specialists joined EMBARC Parent Navigators to help families work through the sign-up process and enroll their 3-year-old and 4-year-old children in universal pre-kindergarten and Head Start programs. 

“I’m very happy that EMBARC did an event for preschool registration,” said Amos Ceu, Burmese Community Navigator for EMBARC, who attended the event. “Even though a lot of the parents from our community don’t have a good education back in Burma, they understand how important education is. Since they did not get a chance to get a good education, they want to give their kids a chance to learn and get a better education.” 

According to Ceu, many parents did not know about the preschool, where to start, or how to go about registering their children. EMBARC posted video announcements in several Burma ethnic languages explaining the importance of preschool. In addition, EMBARC Parent Navigators reached out to parents.

Parent Navigator families visit the Forest Avenue Library for a scavenger hunt, and a story time session with singing and dancing in June 2022.

“We called almost every one of the Parent Navigator clients from EMBARC and asked them if they have kids that are younger than five,” Ceu said. “We also told them to come to our registration event and that we would help them register their kids for preschool. I’m glad that I was able to help the families.”

While preschool magnifies students’ success, the process is often impossible to navigate without knowledge of the U.S. education system or fluency in English.

Plah Eh Paw, mother of two and an EMBARC client, was able to get her daughter registered for preschool with EMBARC’s help. Paw does not speak English, but was able to receive help through an interpreter at the registration event.  Paw said that it would be a problem if she wasn’t able to receive help. 

“Without EMBARC, I can not [register for preschool],” Paw said through an interpreter. “When they go to school, they learn, they meet a new friend, they are happy.” 

EMBARC staff also helped parents outside of the registration events. When Chit Moo* was met with difficulty, she called EMBARC’s Lead Parent Navigator Lal Muani for help. 

Moo’s daughter went to Rolling Green Elementary for preschool this past school year, and wanted her son to be enrolled for the coming school year. Rolling Green’s start and end times are a perfect match to Moo’s work schedule, and the location was close to her job as well. Moo had everything set up with the school’s interpreter, who she had been in contact with since the end of last school year. She sent him all of the necessary information and confirmed that he could get her son registered on Feb.2, 2022. But by Feb. 7, Moo still had not heard back from him. She called and texted and he did not answer. 

She waited about two weeks for his response before reaching out to EMBARC. When Muani called Rolling Green, she confirmed that Moo’s son was not on the list of students registered for the 2022-2023 school year. The school’s waitlist had already grown, and Muani learned they could not guarantee that Moo’s son would be able to attend. Muani found Moo’s son an open spot at Johnston Early Learning Academy’s four-year-old preschool. His sister will be starting kindergarten here this coming school year as well. 

It is a troubling feeling having to depend on an interpreter to get things done for her, Moo said, but she feels relieved that she can always trust EMBARC to help. 

“Whenever we need help then we just call, and you guys support the way that we need,” Moo said through an interpreter. “Since we can’t speak [English], you guys can be our voice and that is really important to our community.” 

Preschool proves crucial to a child’s long-term success in school. In preschool, children build a foundation for their academic careers. Data collected from DMPS found that when children are denied preschool, only 29% are able to meet kindergarten reading benchmarks. Students will start kindergarten 18 months behind their peers in development. In contrast, children who attend preschool are almost twice as likely to meet math benchmarks and more than twice as likely to meet literacy benchmarks from kindergarten through fifth grade.

EMBARC staff are able to help families register for school every Wednesday in the Access Center, through the Helpline, or through case management services. EMBARC hopes to expand these efforts to other area school districts to deliver the promise of universal preschool to every child and family in our refugee and immigrant communities. 

*Client pseudonym

Story by Taylor Thomas, RISE AmeriCorps Member