PARENTAL AND COMMUNITY SUPPORT AND INVOLVEMENT
With implementation of the Parents as Teachers program, Missouri formally recognized the importance of parents as their child's first and most important teacher. Initial and continuing evaluation results substantiate the overwhelming benefits of involving all parents in the educational process. Benefits include significant improvements in student achievement, better socialization, a better and more frequent relationship between the home and the school, and improved attitudes toward schooling. Missouri's early childhood screening program has identified and taken steps to remedy potential delays resulting from hearing, visual, and language problems. As the benefits of the initial PAT program from birth to three were replicated, the Department expanded the PAT curriculum to age five and developed the Practical Parenting Partnership (PPP) program for parents, students, and educators in grades kindergarten through twelve. These initiatives provide universal access and have increasingly encouraged collaborations with other community services and organizations.
Caring Communities is a school-based, integrated human service delivery system. The Missouri Departments of Mental Health, Social Services,Health, Elementary and Secondary Education, and Labor jointly fund and collaborate on this project. The program is a priority of the Governor. The goals of the system are to keep children successfully and safely in school and with their families.
The Governor's Policy Academy on Systemic Education Reform has also recommended that the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, in conjunction with the Governor, impanel a broad-based advisory group to study early childhood education and child care needs in Missouri. The panel, comprised of academic experts, policymakers, state agencies, and public and private providers, is charged with developing a strategic plan to improve services to Missouri's children, from birth to age eight, and to encourage collaboration among providers of those services.