Prior to Thursday’s ribbon cutting ceremony at the Pagewood Learning Center, Heather Ortiz said she was scrambling to find a pre-K 3 program for her son.
Ortiz said she had initially planned on taking her son, Levi, to Burnett Elementary but she found out the school was no longer offering a pre-K program.
After she called around to other pre-K programs in Odessa, Ortiz was directed to the Pagewood Learning Center, which was scheduled to begin classes this year.
“I was a little scared that we weren’t going to figure anything out, but thank God everything worked out,” said Ortiz, a mother of five. “He’s really excited. He’s talking about his class and his teacher and his friends.
“To know that he’s going to have that opportunity to get started early with education and have the foundation and stepping stones to move on to elementary, it means a lot.”
Levi Ortiz helped members of the Ector County Independent School District and YMCA cut the ribbon on Thursday morning to officially open the Pagewood Learning Center.
Heather Ortiz said it is special that ECISD and the YMCA would welcome her son with open arms.
“For them to reach out and invite us here, that definitely meant a lot to him,” she said with a smile. “When he found out he was going to help cut the ribbon, he stood right up and he was ready.”
The Pagewood Learning Center becomes the third pre-K program that works in connection with ECISD. The other two are the Lamar Early Education Center and Carver Early Education Center.
However, the Pagewood Learning Center is unique from the other early education centers as it will offer childcare before and after school.
Crissy Medina, the CEO of the Odessa Family YMCA, said children who need childcare after school will be transported to another YMCA location while the licensed childcare at the Pagewood facility is finalized. Medina expects to have the license by Sept. 1.
“I feel that it will be a really beneficial service for parents who are worried about their child and who are going to watch their child after a half day of pre-K,” Medina said.
ECISD Superintendent Scott Muri said the need for extended pre-K came when numbers showed two years ago that 1,300 children weren’t ready for kindergarten. The pre-K 3 program will be a half day that will be a Frog Street 3 Curriculum, which is specifically designed for pre-K to 3-year-old children.
Muri said the pre-K 4 program extends to a full day of learning to prepare children for kindergarten.
“A lot of those preschool skills that kids need are letter recognition skills, color recognition skills, learning how to work in groups; a lot of socialization happens especially with the age of 3,” he said. “…. A lot of socialization activities will happen as part of the pre-K program.”
Medina said the partnership between the YMCA and ECISD was a perfect fit.
The Pagewood Learning Center will have 14 classrooms with a facility that spans 21,000 square feet on a piece of property that extends 7.3 acres. Medina said this facility will be the building blocks of learning for many children.
“We were already doing similar curriculums within our organization,” she said. “The transition was almost just meant to be.”
