Back-to-school prep: United Way's Kinder Camps help kindergartners for first day of school

While a child's very first day of school can be an exciting time for students and parents alike, it can also come with a lot of nerves as students learn to adjust to the everyday routines for the first time.

United Way tries to alleviate those nerves through its annual Kinder Camps, an orientation session for both students and parents to help understand school procedures better.

"This has been a program we have hosted for about 10 years now, even with the COVID-19 backlog we faced last year," said Molli LeMay, United Way of Etowah County's Success by 6 director. "It's our first year back since then."

This year, Kinder Camps were held in four of Etowah County's elementary schools: Highland, West End, Duck Springs and Glencoe, throughout the first two weeks of August to prepare for students to start school on Aug. 11.

LeMay estimates that 250 students participated in the program, with 425 total participants including parents.

"We definitely did not have all of our students here, as some had planned last-minute vacations or had things come up last minute, but the majority of our kindergarteners are in attendance," Glencoe Elementary principal Laura Sims said during her school's session on Aug. 10.

During these sessions, students were given half of the day to be introduced to their teachers and begin learning how to proceed with school protocols, such as getting in line, walking quietly down the halls and listening to instructions.

"It acts as a mock first day for kindergarten, which lets them meet staff and classmates through different activities such as gym time and library," LeMay said. "We've also done health screenings that have allowed us in the past to help children get set up with glasses and get other diagnoses."

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Students also were given the opportunity to tour the school building, including the cafeteria for them to set up their lunch accounts, make a trip to the library to have a short story time with the librarian and visit the front office to meet the office staff and the principals.

"This is a wonderful opportunity for students, as the first day of school can be very overwhelming," said Sims. "This allows our newest students to become familiar with their surroundings and get those first-day jitters out of the way sooner so leaving their parents for the first time won't be as emotional."

LeMay said the camps give students an extra boost, as it helps them adjust faster to the new routines they will be faced with at the start.

"Through these programs, we've learned that students are adjusting to school six weeks faster than those who were not able to be a part of this," she said. "This allows teachers to have more instructional time that isn't being taken away from teaching students these things over and over again."

While students were spending their time in this way, parents also were undertaking their own orientation led by school officials and resource partners through United Way to learn more about other school procedures such as the car pick-up line and handbook protocols for absences.

Students and parents were also given a free breakfast, snacks and lunch courtesy of Osborne Food Service, which donated over 620 meals for the entire program.

"We are able to donate the leftovers evenly back to the schools except for our sandwiches and cookies, since those come to us frozen and we have to thaw them out," LeMay said. "However, those get donated to some of our partner organizations such as the Freedom Center and the Salvation Army."

Teachers participating in the program will also be given gift cards to either Amazon or Walmart that will allow them to purchase school supplies they may need throughout the year.

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LeMay said she would like to slowly expand the program to cover more elementary schools. She'd even like to create a camp for rising eighth-graders entering high school for the first time, as that can also be a "culture shock" for some kids, especially for those transitioning from middle schools that are in separate facilities from the high schools they will enter into.

"Eventually, I would also like to be able to build a kit for schools to be able to host these camps themselves, which would allow us to focus our efforts on reaching more schools," she added. "It is a lot, so we would be adding one or two at a time once we get to a point where we can add schools."

This article originally appeared on The Gadsden Times: First-time students attend United Way's Kinder Camps before big day