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First Start

First Start

First start teacher Ron Dechter with students

October 2002
by Richard Bermack

“I want you to know that this is not a preschool or a nursery school, but this is a child’s first school,” states First Start teacher Ron Dechter. Dechter’s classroom is across the way from the Head Start center. “The kids are learning all the necessary social and academic skills for them to succeed. They learn numbers, letters, shapes, colors and basic academics.”

First Start is a state-funded program similar to the federally funded Head Start. The main difference is income eligibility. A family of four with an income up to $34,000 per year qualifies for the state program; the limit for the federal program is $18,100.

Like the Head Start teachers, Dechter uses the lunch table as a learning experience to teach both nutrition and social skills. He explains: “Eating lunch together, kids learn how to pass food and how to carefully pour their milk. When the milk gets spilled, they have to clean up, and not only after themselves, but after others. So they learn not only to take care of their own needs but other’s also. They learn how to be a friend and how to have a friend.

“I have talked to parents after their children have gone on to kindergarten and first grade and they say, without a doubt, the children who have been through our program have a tremendous advantage over kids who have not, both in social skills and academics,” Dechter states with pride. “Our program is so well received by parents that an increasing number of kids are the younger siblings of children who attended the previous year.”

Dechter teaches the parents as well. “We have parent meetings and help them learn about resources in the community. I talk to them about how to read with their children, so that what happens in the classroom is what happens in the home and what happens in the home happens in the classroom.” He also encourages the parents to socialize with each other. He knows he has succeeded when by the end of the term the parents are cooperating to bring their children in groups.

Before teaching at MAAC, Dechter taught part time at several private schools, where he received no health or other benefits. “I’m so pleased to teach at MAAC. I cannot only be a teacher and work with kids, which I love, but I can enjoy the protection of being part of a union. I get health care benefits and am part of a family,” he says. Dechter’s own children attended First Start, and he encourages other union members to check out the program and send their kids if they qualify.