School Mates Even Start Program At Barker Center Offers Literacy Education For Children And Their Parents

Leonid Rusavak is learning to speak English. So is his 5-year-old daughter, Anna. In fact, they go to school together.

Under a program called Even Start, families in need get to spend time together while getting an education. The program at the Barker Community Learning Center in the Spokane Valley is in its second year.

While Rusavak is attending an English-as-a-second-language class, his daughter is down the hall in a preschool/day-care class.

“It is really good to be here with her,” said Rusavak, a 34-year-old immigrant from Ukraine. “When she was first dropped off, she was crying all the time. They were patient with her. Now she is independent.”

Even Start is a four-year, federally funded program. It is administered through the Central Valley School District, which operates the Barker Center, a home for social service and educational programs at N1512 Barker Road.

Even Start is open to all qualifying low-income families in the Valley; the main requirement is that both parent and child are in need of basic education.

About 25 families are in the program now. The enrollment is fairly split between parents who need ESL classes and those completing high school equivalency degrees.

Program coordinator Marcia Harrington said on-site day care is one key to Even Start’s success.

“This really solves a lot. Parents aren’t busy running their kids around,” she said. “They can go down and check on them.”

But the program can’t yet take children under 3, so Even Start also pays for in-home child care, transportation, gas vouchers, bus tokens or bus passes.

“It’s pretty rare to have money for child care. It’s the main deterrent to continuing education,” Harrington said. “So we do whatever it takes.”

At one point, that meant having two-year-old twins in her office for two months while the mother attended class.

It’s difficult to describe how scary it is for people who can’t communicate because of a language barrier, Harrington said. Being at the same place as their children “relieves a lot of worries,” she said.

“It’s scary for kids, too, when there’s not another child who speaks their language,” Harrington said. “Preschool is hard enough even if you speak the language.”

The Even Start program has four main areas of focus:

Parenting education.

Early childhood education.

Adult education.

Parent/child involvement.

“The goal is to pull all the pieces together to build family literacy,” said Donna Syron, who runs the program with Harrington as the family advocate.

Parents meet every Monday to learn parenting skills and talk about the “big picture,” Syron said.

As part of promoting parent-child involvement, parents have a half-hour play time with their kids three times a week while at school.

Valley resident Karen Stromgren, 26, and her son, Nathaniel, 4, are enrolled in the program while Stromgren works to get her GED.

“It’s cool. It’s really neat. Kids don’t have to go to a different day care,” she said. “You can go peek on them, check on them.”

Stromgren usually arrives at school at 8:30 a.m. She drops Nathaniel off at the daycare, where he is given breakfast. Then she goes to her class.

The program has been perfect for her, Stromgren said.

“It all correlates with everything I need and do and what I want to do,” she said.

Nathaniel will stay in the program through kindergarten. Stromgren said he has thrived under the care of the teachers.

“He’s really happy here, very adjusted,” she said. “There haven’t been any problems (in class) and he’s a really clingy kid.”

Stromgren and Rusavak praised the staff for in-home visits, which is also part of Even Start.

“It’s so nice when they do that,” Rusavak said through an interpreter the center employs. “They don’t do that in the Ukraine.”

Stromgren is happy that the ESL classes are part of the program. It’s good that Nathaniel gets to play with kids from other countries, she said. “They learn from each other.”

For example, on a recent day during parent-child time, a Spanish-speaking boy was asked if he could help with counting numbers. He replied that he was busy. Then an English-speaking girl said she could help, and counted from 1 to 10 in Spanish.

Languages currently represented in Even Start are Russian, Spanish, Vietnamese and English, Harrington said. With the exception of Russian, the program has students teaching other students language, she said. “It’s the best way to learn.”

For Rusavak, who has four other children - three others in school and an infant at home with his wife, Olga - the goal is to get a job.

“I’m learning how to talk and write,” he said. “Every day helps.”

Rusavak will also learn how to apply for jobs and how to use the newspaper to look for jobs.

Rusavak, who immigrated a year and a half ago, recently moved to the North Side from the Valley. He heard about the program through friends in the Valley. “It is the best,” he said. Because of his connections in the Valley, Rusakvak prefers to continue his education at the Barker Center.

The goal of the program, Syron said, is to help people communicate, solve problems, become self-sufficient and have hope.

Stromgren said she is thinking about studying early childhood development after she earns her GED.

“If you believe in education, this is the place to start,” she said.

GETTING STARTED For more information on the Even Start program, contact Marcia Harrington or Donna Syron at 921-6292.