A crisis within a crisis: New project tackles behavioral problems in Sarasota preschools

At 9 a.m., Amanda Perry settled into her work chair, finally able to catch her breath.

Hours into a harried morning, the single mother had just dropped off her crying son Cason at daycare – a place she found following a five-month search for an opening.   

But 10 minutes after arriving at her Venice office job, Amanda got a call from the daycare director telling her to come back and pick up her son.

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“He’s hitting, he’s biting, he’s scratching,” Amanda recalled being told of those incidents last fall. “Now there are other kids doing the same thing.”

The daycare, at a loss on how to handle Cason, regularly pulled him out of class or sent him home.

In December – forced to miss work repeatedly to care for Cason – she lost her job.

Tackling a crisis within a crisis

Amanda’s plight is part of a wider crisis within child care.

Early learning centers are reporting unprecedented displays of behavioral problems among preschool children – exacerbated by the pandemic and a host of economic pressures on families and parents.

In addition to emotional and violent outbursts, children are struggling to focus or relate to their peers. Disruptions have taken over instruction time, now consuming huge chunks of the day.

Alongside those challenges are other issues plaguing the childcare industry – low pay for teachers, high costs for parents and years-long waiting lists for open slots.

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Not only do these behavioral problems threaten to impact parents’ jobs and worsen teacher burnout, experts say, they pose severe long-term risks to children’s development and learning potential – an issue that could hit elementary schools within a few years’ time.

In response to this crisis within a crisis, several local nonprofits have banded together to launch a collaborative pilot project – placing early childhood mental health consultants in classrooms at 12 area preschools.

“If we can address these issues earlier on,” said Andrea Doggett, vice president of community impact at United Way Suncoast, “we are dealing with a mound versus a mountain.”

A tall order

United Way Suncoast is one of the funders of the pilot project, along with the Charles & Margery Barancik Foundation.

Spearheaded by Sarasota’s Florida Center for Early Childhood, it is modeled on the latest research on child development out of Georgetown University.

Working with the Early Learning Coalitions of Sarasota County and Manatee County, the pilot project began in September by placing four childhood mental health consultants in 12 preschools throughout both counties.

The main goal is to support teachers and preschool staff, equipping them with extra tools to help children manage overwhelming emotions, which can impact the entire class.

“It’s tough if a child is biting or hurting other students,” said Kristie Skoglund, CEO of the Florida Center and a specialist in infant and young children’s mental health. “The students on the receiving end have to deal with that, and the parents are not happy.”

The project also aims to reduce the rate of preschool expulsions – which is four times greater than that for children in kindergarten through twelfth grade, she said.

The consultants are working with teachers to dig deeper, to understand the whole, developing child and the source of the behavioral issue.

For instance, do outbursts point to stunted development from pandemic isolation or early signs of autism? Is it from hunger or a lack of sleep? A question of temperament? Or is there possible violence in the home?

“It’s a tall order for a preschool teacher who frankly isn’t trained or paid to do what we are expecting them to do,” Skoglund said.

And yet these challenges have landed on their plates.

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The pandemic exacerbated behavioral issues, early learning experts say. Isolation led many children to enter preschool with little to no experience on how to interact, play or share with kids their age.

Some take hours to calm down after arriving in the morning. Others are quick to fight or stay in a state of anxiety all day long – impeding their ability to learn.

What’s more, children are like sponges when it comes to conflicts at home, Skogland said. Amid rising inflation, stagnant wages and the housing crisis, many parents are struggling with hopelessness – something Skoglund noted that children as young as 11 months old can readily absorb.

“Children are feeling a lot of pressure and stress,” she said.

Trained guidance from a caring adult can help them regulate emotions and behavior at a critical time in human development, paving the way for healthy social relationships and academic success.  In this way, students are free to learn, rather than internalizing messages that they are defective or bad.

“There are all kinds of things we can give children to use to feel ok to be who you are and that there is nothing wrong with you,” she said.

'They love that'

In Sandy Kiser’s 25 years as a preschool teacher, working mostly with 2- and 3-year-olds, the level of recent behavioral issues she witnesses are some of the most challenging she has handled.

“With the pandemic, what I have seen with the kids is just no social skills whatsoever,” she said.

Yet, in a few short months, Nashaylia Jenkins, the consultant assigned to Bright Beginnings Preschool in Sarasota – where Kiser teaches – has made an enormous impact, Kiser said.

She enters the classroom to work in partnership with teachers, observing and building relationships with students while introducing research-backed approaches and games.

Kids are engaging in new projects that help them learn to share or sit next to each other without hitting.

An extra emphasis on tactile objects to occupy their hands – from squeeze balls to Play-Doh and crayons – aid with a host of struggles, including stress as well as challenges with sensory and motor skills.

An emotions poster helps them process what they’re feeling and why. Kiser hung it on the wall and goes over it with the kids every day.

“Oh my goodness they love that,” she said.

One of the biggest positive impacts comes when the children blow bubbles through straws. The exercise makes the kids take very deep breaths, calming the entire class, including one nonverbal student who remains upset long after her mom drops her off.

“Immediately they are relaxed and focused, and they are laughing together,” Kiser said. “It was a very big change in their little bodies. If you are in a constant state of stress, you are not going to learn anything."

But the consultants are there not only to observe the kids. They help the teachers, too – a workforce particularly hard hit by the pandemic and housing crisis.

Kiser is a cancer survivor who went through surgery last year. Jenkins taught her how to step away when needed, to check in with herself and take several very deep breaths to refocus.

“She helped me a lot because I wasn’t recognizing when I was overwhelmed,” Kiser said. “I love my job and wanted to be with my kids.”

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Beyond the classroom

While the Florida Center continues to collect data from the new pilot project, early feedback has been “excellent,” said Stephanie Essex, clinical supervisor of the early childhood mental health consultant program.

“In almost every school we are seeing a difference,” Essex said. The pilot project will run for a total of three years.

Terri Goehring, the director at Bright Beginnings, said the transformations since Jenkins' arrival are extending well beyond the classrooms.

“She has so many resources at her hands, things we’re unaware of, training that we don’t have,” Goehring said.

A big push of the pilot project is for the consultants to assist teachers in spotting developmental delays and other issues and work with families on referrals and outside help.

Because of Jenkins' expertise, said Goehring, parents more readily listen to her than school staff about their children’s challenges.

“I have families now that have gotten involved with physical therapy and occupational therapy and a lot of mental health referrals,” she said. “Those resources have been put right in the families’ hands and quite frankly, followed up on.”

That type of quick intervention at preschools can make a world of difference for a child at a critical point in human development.

It can also head off months of frustration for parents like Amanda.

With guidance from the Florida Center, Amanda finally found the help she needed for Cason, now 3.

In addition to experiencing domestic turmoil through the pandemic and the move to a new town, Cason was diagnosed with autism, ADHD and developmental delays as well as health issues stemming from a premature birth.

He was steered to the Voluntary Pre-Kindergarten Program, or VPK, at Laurel Nokomis School, where he started in January.

Amanda has seen major changes in her son. Almost non-verbal before, Cason is now talking up a storm, singing his ABCs and counting.

“He loves school. He wants to go. He runs to put his school shoes on,” Amanda said. “He goes there and hugs his teachers every day.”

This story comes from a partnership between the Sarasota Herald-Tribune and the Community Foundation of Sarasota County. Saundra Amrhein covers the Season of Sharing campaign, along with issues surrounding housing, utilities, child care and transportation in the area. She can be reached at samrhein@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: New project tackles behavioral problems in Sarasota preschools