Kids, Educators Benefit at New Oak Park School

By Carrie Peyton Dahlberg and Terri Hardy, The Sacramento Bee, Calif.

Oct. 19–A research preschool aimed at both teaching young children and devising better ways to help youngsters learn has opened in Sacramento’s Oak Park neighborhood after years of planning.

The school, named the Triumph Center for Early Childhood Education, began classes last month for 3- and 4-year-olds.

“This has been quite a few years and quite a struggle to get here,” said Dr. Robert Hendren, executive director of the UC Davis MIND Institute, which studies neurodevelopmental disorders.

The school is still working toward its hoped-for enrollment of 75 to 80 children, and the MIND Institute is helping by encouraging employees to send their children there, Hendren said.

Now, 50 children attend the Triumph preschool, about 20 percent of them kids with special needs, said Lisa Serna-Mayorga, spokeswoman for the St. HOPE organization, which runs the Triumph center as well as K-12 charter schools.

The preschool is a three-way partnership among the MIND Institute, the UC Davis school of education and St. HOPE, which is the brainchild of former basketball player Kevin Johnson.

At a ceremony for preschool parents and supporters on Thursday, Johnson said the new school adds the last piece to St. HOPE’s education continuum, allowing children to attend from preschool through grade 12.

Throughout their learning years, he said, students will absorb a vital lesson.

“They will hear over and over that any kid, regardless of ZIP code, can get into a four-year college and excel,” Johnson said.

Once the Triumph Center is fully up to speed, organizers envision it as a place where doctoral students in education can do research into improved learning strategies and where specialists in autism can tailor programs to meet students’ needs.

“It will be a broader model for what preschool education can be for the rest of the state,” said Harold Levine, dean of UC Davis’ school of education.

While Levine also called the school “a place of real potential for the Oak Park community,” so far only about 30 percent of the children attending live in Oak Park, said Cristin Fiorelli, the preschool’s founding director.

With more outreach, the Triumph preschool hopes to increase that to 70 percent in the next three to five years, she said.

At this point, about 40 percent of the preschoolers come from low-income families getting child care subsidies, according to Fiorelli.

Some wealthier families from outside the neighborhood are drawn to the preschool because “they know we are accessing resources from UC Davis,” said Fiorelli.

Suzanne Richards, who on Thursday sat in the audience beaming, said she and her husband are building a home in Oak Park, and are thrilled that their 4-year-old son David is attending Triumph preschool.

The inclusion of developmentally disabled children was a big plus, Richards said.

“It was one of the ideas that really sold me,” Richards said. “I liked the fact that David would experience other children who are on different levels of learning.”

University students will probably to begin their work at Triumph in January when the winter quarter begins, said Levine.

Neuroscience experts are likely to start their formal research projects at the preschool next fall, according to Hendren. One thing they’re especially excited about is the floor-to-ceiling windows in observation rooms where researchers can watch the youngsters.

The special two-way mirrors in those rooms let parents and experts see the children without being seen, which can be helpful for researchers who want to unobtrusively record how kids play and interact.

The MIND Institute is still trying to line up funding for video cameras and high-quality videotapes for the observation effort, Hendren said.

The university isn’t providing any ongoing funding for the Triumph preschool, which aims at being self-supporting through a monthly tuition of $575 per child.

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