Woman Trying to Start Pre School for at Risk Kids Downtown
This video is no longer available.
The clock is ticking for a woman in Jackson hoping to open a pre-school for at-risk children. Donna Agnew needs to raise $225,000 by the end of the month. The building at 455 East Chester is silent now. If enough money is raised in the next two weeks renovation will begin on what will become a non-profit pre-school for three and four-year-olds called Hands Up! “The renovation will take about four months. So, if we start the renovations on the first of April. The school will be ready by July. We move in and school begins on August 15th,” said executive director Donna Agnew. Hands Up helps children get ready for Kindergarten. Language skills and social skills will be taught. Studies show a person linguistically poor entering first grade knows only 5,000 words. Compare that to a child linguistically rich entering first grade who knows 20,000 words. “For three-four year old children not being able to understand the alphabet and not being able to recognize numbers and shapes and certain things they should be doing by the time they get to kindergarten. I think Hands Up will be a great program for them to start learning it,” said Marquita Long from East Jackson. The parents must agree to a two-year commitment for their child. Parents will also sign a contract that includes a commitment to three volunteer hours a month, parenting classes and two home visits per year. “We want to empower the parents to go with the children to school to help them study to help them participate in every aspect of school,” said Agnew. “They don’t want to be in a situation where they can’t spell certain words or they can’t pronounce certain words,” said Long. If the $225,000 is raised, registration for 32 students will begin May 1.
