Kaylani Gomez, 4, works on her Waterford UPSTART computer with her mother, Valeria Gomez, Friday, Dec. 27, 2019. The program is free for parents and provides preparation for kids about to enter kindergarten.
Sunday, Jan. 5, 2020 | 2 a.m.
It’s Friday afternoon in the Sunrise Manor area of Las Vegas and most kids are enjoying the time off from school during the holiday break. But Kaylania Gomez, 4, is serious about her studies.
She anxiously nudges her mother, Valeria Gomez, to grab her laptop so she can get started. For this lesson, Kaylania is counting cubes. She glides her tiny pink nail-polished finger over the screen as she quietly counts to herself, “1, 2, 3, 4 …” Kaylania is only supposed to do 15 minutes a day on her work, but she’ll often ask to stretch her lessons to 20 minutes, Gomez said.
The lessons are part of a virtual preschool readiness program provided by Waterford UPSTART, a Utah-based nonprofit agency that provides programs meant to fill gaps in early childhood education, co-founder and Executive Director Claudia Miner said.
Gomez, a single mother of two, enrolled her daughter in the program because of the lack of early childhood education options in their northeast Las Vegas neighborhood. Gomez also works full-time, meaning transportation for schooling is a barrier.
Gomez remembers feeling behind in school when she was Kaylania’s age, after going from a Spanish-speaking preschool to an English-speaking elementary school. She doesn’t want her daughter to experience the same anxiety that comes with not knowing how to express the answer to a question.
“I want her to be more secure in herself and more confident than I was,” she said.
UPSTART launched a pilot program in Clark County this school year to test its curriculum with more diverse families in Las Vegas, many of whom have nontraditional work schedules.
“Clark County is a huge district, and we’re on a fact-finding mission right now,” Miner said.
The free program is subsidized through private grants and partnerships with states and local jurisdictions. Participating families are provided with laptops and internet access, if needed. The pilot program was launched in Clark County in August and was meant to target English-language learners but was open to anyone who applied. There are 424 Clark County preschool-age children enrolled in the program, Miner said.
UPSTART provides personalized curriculum based on each child’s readiness level. It also comes with an app, so Gomez can check her daughter’s progress on her phone. The program encourages parents and family members to be engaged, so Gomez will incorporate her daughter’s lessons with daily chores and errands.
“When we go to the grocery store, we try to do things like look for the number 3,” Gomez said. “Or we’ll go out and she’ll look for patterns, like, ‘big-small, big--small.’”
Gomez tries to help Kaylania with her homework as well, but her daughter is often too independent and does far better when left to her own devices.
“I’ll just be making dinner while she’s at the kitchen table doing her homework ,and I’ll hear the little things tell her, ‘Good job, good job’ when I’m not hovering over her,” Gomez said.
Whenever Kaylania completes a module or lesson, the program sends her gold, silver or bronze medals in the mail. Gomez in turn rewards Kaylania with treats or a manicure or other items favored by the 4-year-old.
Gomez said she hoped to put her son in the program once the baby is old enough.
The Clark County Commission is considering whether to allocate a portion of the revenue from the recently approved 0.125% sales tax increase toward UPSTART. The tax, enacted to raise funding for local education and social programs, went into effect Jan. 1. At the commission’s Dec. 16 meeting, Chairwoman Marilyn Kirkpatrick said she liked the program for its convenience factor, and the fact that it encourages families to be more engaged.
Miner said the program had already proven itself to be effective in other jurisdictions. In 2016, the Utah State Board of Education studied the effectiveness of the program and found that UPSTART students outperformed state averages in standardized testing compared with their non-UPSTART peers.
Miner said the program wasn’t meant to replace typical preschool, but rather fill gaps for those who that can’t access traditional early childhood education.
“There are a number of different barriers that exist, and we’re just trying to expand parent choice,” she said.
