FUN TIME EARLY CHILDHOOD ACADEMY

Goal #1 Children enter kindergarten ready to read and ready to learn
Goal #2 Quality pre-school and childcare for low income working families is available year-round, with no interruption during the summer.
Goal #3 Quality pre-school and childcare for low income working families is affordable.
Goal #4 Fun Time has developed a new program that includes learning modules for parents with options such as basic computer knowledge, resume writing, child development and parenting skills, The name of the program is PATCH (Parents Actively Teaching Children at Home). We have been teaching them about early literacy, reading to children, engaging with them and behavior management as an important supplement to what is learned in school. We have also brought in the help of STEAM, financial and health experts to further parents' knowledge on those specific subject matters. The more we educate the parents, they will hopefully embrace their role as the first teacher in a young child's life and work with their children utilizing the training they have received through Fun Time and other partner agencies to whom we would refer.

Fun Time provides year-round education for our children.  Florida Voluntary Prekindergarten and Head Start funding however follow the school year only.  Fun Time continues to educate and care for our VPK and Head Start children throughout the 10-week summer, ensuring kindergarten success.  No additional fees are assessed to parents.  The choice to educate year-round is a critical one for the children’s academic success and a costly one for Fun Time.Fun Time’s goal is to provide safe, quality, affordable education and care for children of low-income working families and to prepare the children for kindergarten, ready to read and ready to learn.  Families and children will have access to our educational programs throughout the year.  Guided by Head Start and Florida Performance Standards and through use of quarterly reliable assessments the teachers determine each child’s areas of mastery and those yet emerging.  Through individualized and group instruction the teachers promote social/ emotional, moral, cognitive, language and physical development and life skills acquisition of every child.  Fun Time builds a partnership with families through mutual respect, open communication, opportunities for parent participation and parent conferencing.  Through that partnership the families learn the importance of quality preschool education for their child.  We offer the summer program at no additional fee to parents though the subsidies from VPK and from Head Start cease for the 10-week summer.  Enrollment throughout the summer is high indicating our parents value our academic program.  The continuity of a quality education results in the children’s preparedness for kindergarten success. Standardized readiness tests and observations from the kindergarten teachers continue to provide feedback that we are accomplishing our goals.  Fun Time’s children are ready for kindergarten and continued academic success.

The Board supports the Executive Director to ensure the school is funded adequately to accomplish its mission.  Perhaps our newest addition to Fun Time’s sustainability plan is the hiring of a part-time public relations and communication consultant.  Her primary responsibilities are to gain Fun Time higher visibility in the community magazines and newspapers, locate more opportunities for speaking engagements, assist our event committee in finding additional event sponsors and help with the production of the Annual Report and newsletters.    Through increased efforts of the Board, numerous additional volunteers and staff, we are building on the strength of the existing donor base while expanding the donor list to include additional individuals, businesses, foundations and special events.  The Board and Executive Director are focused on the importance of ongoing and frequent written and verbal communication with donors. In October 2018, we mailed our sixth Annual Report 2017 - 2018 to our generous and thoughtful donors.    As in past years, Fun Time Board members and the Executive Director have organized individual and group school tours and small-bite lunches. We have invited friends from the past to become reacquainted with our school and the quality of the educational program. New friends are being introduced to our quality school, getting to know the children and observing the spirit of learning. We are inviting current and potential funders to have their club and organization meetings at Fun Time, giving us a chance to show them our school and wonderful children.  Our annual signature fundraising event in February continues to be enthusiastically received by the community.  We have had increased attendance at both the Patron Party and Annual Event year after year. The Event Committee has encouraged more corporate sponsors to participate.  Fun Time successfully expanded its Board committees.  We have involved interested community members and selected new Board members.  We will continue to build committee membership. The Board’s efforts have resulted in an updated and strengthened Board and committee structure with a strong emphasis on clear and agreed roles and responsibilities and a planned approach to Board succession.  The Annual Appeal has been carefully reviewed to be as impactful, as possible.  Board members are asked to personalize the initial mailed requests as well as thank you letters.  We have included an option for donating to our endowment fund onto the card.  The Board is actively learning about growing the endowment.  We have developed an endowment committee to help us address this important part of a sustainability plan.

Fun Time maintains a full enrollment of 96 children year-round.  Upon enrollment many of our students are significantly developmentally delayed. Prior to enrollment many have had no exposure to the English language other than through television.  They require immediate remedial care and referrals, all of which are provided at no additional parent fee.  These families would find it very challenging to locate quality affordable assistance elsewhere.  Without Fun Time the severity of these children’s developmental delays might not be discovered until much later, requiring more extreme courses of action and interfering with later school success.  Fun Time graduates enter kindergarten, ready to read and learn as determined by the Florida Kindergarten School-Readiness assessments.  Our children, from diverse socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds, become early literacy learners, socially integrated, and foundationally prepared.  Expectations for a successful life of self-sufficiency are high. When the school year begins, our Voluntary Prekindergarten children are tested on a standardized tool to determine a baseline of literacy knowledge.  A few students knew many letters.  Some knew 3-5 letters.  Most children could not identify any letter names.  Significant gains are evidenced throughout the year on both Teaching Strategies Gold and the Florida VPK assessment tools.  They are administered three times per year in math, science, language and social/emotional development.  By the end of the year our VPK children knew all their letter names and the sounds.  Most could recognize sight words and sound out the letters in the word, as well as, count syllables in words.  Some were reading simple books. In an effort to eliminate the “summer learning slump” we encourage parents to keep their children at Fun Time for the summer program as well as for the rest of the year.  In addition we know that young children need care over the summer months while their parents are working and that older siblings do not always provide adequate or safe care. 70% of the children who completed the VPK year also stayed for the entire summer academic program.  30% left during the summer program, many in order to spend family time with family or visiting grandparents.