I also contacted high school senior Skyler Jones.

Skyler Jones is the student director of the

Webster Groves preschool and my former classmate. Skyler has worked her way up the ladder to
get where she is today. The child development class offers levels one through five; fours and
fives were considered interns and typically had two hours of the class. In the first level you learn
a lot of the basic information and apply what you learn in the classroom through observation.
The second level is when you get to do a lesson and there is way less paperwork then one. In the
third level you have more responsibility and still have to do lessons, sometimes more than one.
In four/five you are given a director or intern position, meaning you are in charge of a certain
area. The interns are also required to write a grant for something that could be used for the
preschool. As a sophomore, Skyler was a Child development 1. Her Junior year she was a 2, and
her senior year she was considered an intern taking 2 hours of child development.

Since Skyler is a student with numerous responsibilities and learning opportunities, I asked
“What has running the preschool taught you?” Skyler responded:

Running the preschool has taught me so many things, but mostly the amount of
work, time, and effort that goes into running the preschool. I knew that it would
be a lot of work, but a lot of the things that I have to do were unknown to me.
Things such as grading, sorting through lesson plans, calling/emailing parents,
and many other things, make it a tough job. Mostly what I have learned though
was that working with children is something that I want to do in the future, and
that I really enjoy the payoff that comes in the end.

I have only been away from the program for a year, but I still wanted to know if Skyler had made
any changes or improvements. My next question was, “What changes did you make from
previous years?” Skyler acknowledged that:

I have not made too many changes this year, however, I think that I definitely
have made things a lot more organized and consistent compared to past years.
One of the main things that I have done is that I have assigned specific jobs to
more advanced kids, and I do daily check-ins with them to make sure that their
jobs are getting done. We are working on installing a program that has the
beginning kids more involved in cleaning, and having the advanced kids
supervising them. With this program I think that we would get a lot more cleaning
done, and have it being completed more efficiently. Another big change that we
are going to be making at the end of this year is that we are moving our "attic"
(storage space) up to the third floor, in order to give us more room. Right now we
are working on cleaning out that space in order to move everything up another
level. It is going to be a big job, however, I think that in the end it will be great for
us with all of the extra space that it would give us.
My next question is about the impact this program has had on Skyler, asking “How has this
program influenced your intended field of study?” Skyler explained:

This opportunity definitely influenced my field of study. I always knew that I

loved to work with kids when I was older, due to babysitting and working at
summer camps and such. However, I was not exactly sure what I wanted to be.
When I got involved in the child development programs at WGHS, I quickly
learned that working in a teaching environment was a great fit for me. When I
became the director, I think that I got to see behind the scenes at just the amount
of work that actually goes into planning your day to day activities, and when I
excelled at that, I think that it solidified it for me that I have the skills that fit well
as a teacher. I have decided that I am interested in being an elementary school
teacher, preferably Kindergarten-Second grades.

I wanted to know about the benefits of the program. I began by asking “How do you think the
preschoolers benefit from this program?” Skyler answered with:

I think that the preschoolers benefit a lot from this program. Most of the
preschoolers that we get in our program are the children of stay-at-home parents
who want their kids to have a social experience before going to kindergarten. I
think that we provide that, and that the kids get a lot of experience with different
kids, and teachers. They get a chance to interact with people, and get a chance to
be away from home for a while, but also without having an overwhelming amount
of time away from their parents. They also get to learn about many different
topics and ideas from different teachers, since we have our high schooler's
teaching the different lesson plans each day.

Next Skyler acknowledged community benefits and involvement:

There are a lot of different ways that we introduce our program into the
community. We have an ad every year that goes out into the Webster-Kirkwood
times and often times articles that follow up about how we are doing in preschool
that year. We also will get involved by offering babysitting and daycare
opportunities to parents running in the Jim Schoemehl, Ivory Crockett, and other
runs. We also have volunteers from our child development classes that will be
babysitters for PTO meetings, or other board meetings. I think that we gain a lot
great advertising through events like that because parents and other adults get to
see how well our students work with children.
Skyler then talked about how the high schoolers benefit from this program, Commenting
that:

A lot of high schoolers get great benefits from taking this class because they
really get a very unique and amazing opportunity to work with kids, and far more
than any other schools child development programs that I have seen. They get
direct experience working with kids every single day and they learn how to take
care and deal with kids. I think that a lot of high schoolers will take this class and
learn that they really enjoy working with kids and discover that it might be
something that they are interested in going into in the future. Or they may even
discover that it is something that they do not enjoy at all. I think that either way, it
is a great class for anyone to take in order to discover that. Also working with
kids is a great skill to have any experience with, because many of the students will
have some sort of exposure to it with having children, or having friends and peers
having children. I think that overall, the high schoolers probably benefit the most
from the class with all of these factors.

My last question was about the challenges Skyler faces, to which she responded:

The most challenging things about being the director is definitely making sure
that everything is up to date. For example, one of the toughest things at the
beginning of the year was making sure that everyone's immunizations records and
applications were up to date. Reaching out to the same parents over and over
again asking them to turn in their paperwork and going to get their kids their shots
for immunizations became very frustrating. Although a lot of those major
paperwork issues are no longer a problem, it can still be very frustrating when
they don't remember to, say, bring in their valentines day boxes, even though I
remind them everyday. Many of the challenging things come from stress from
parents, or getting things pulled together for lesson plans in time. Other than some
of those things, I really enjoy being the director!

(S. Jones, personal communication, April 8, 2019)