Kids from low-income families in West Baltimore will soon get a head start on learning before they ever set foot in school.

Starting this fall, an internationally renowned program called ParentChild+ will send early learning specialists into 30 toddlers’ homes and day care locations twice a week, bearing educational gifts and guidance for caregivers. The free service promises big payoffs: A head start in kindergarten, higher test scores in elementary school and better graduation rates.

“This program was founded to decrease high school dropout rates,” said Malkia Singleton Ofori-Agyekum, the mid-Atlantic regional director for ParentChild+. “And that’s what our founders discovered: You have to start early, at 2 or 3.”

ParentChild+ has been around for nearly 60 years in cities across the U.S. and abroad, but this will be its first foray in Maryland. It’s designed to fill the gap between when a child starts to grasp early verbal and learning skills and when they can start public school, reaching children between 16 months and 4 years old.

In particular, ParentChild+ is aimed at kids whose families can’t afford to send them to center-based child care or private preschool and opt to keep them at home with a parent, friend or neighbor. During their 30-minute visits, ParentChild+ teachers show parents or caregivers how to use the toys and books they bring to prepare little ones for pre-K and kindergarten.

“You have to do it in the home and involve the parent, because home is where children spend most of their time,” Singleton Ofori-Agyekum said.

The nonprofit reports children in the program who attend a year of pre-K enter school performing 10 months ahead of their age. They go on to perform better on third grade math tests, are less likely to need special education services, and are 30% more likely than their peers to graduate high school.

ParentChild+ will start with 25 individual families and work with one home-based day care, which is expected to bring in an additional five children. The organization uses a similar model to send teachers to licensed home-based child care providers for 45-minute visits. Those providers can cost between $60 and $95 less per week for Baltimore families compared to larger, center-based care.

Even kids who participate through a home-based provider receive books and guide sheets that go home with them, so parents who may not have the time for 92 home visits over the course of a year or more can still keep up with their child’s new learning.

ParentChild+ is partnering with New Song Community Learning Center, a nonprofit that has been in Sandtown-Winchester for over 30 years, to bring two early learning specialists to West Baltimore families.

Singleton Ofori-Agyekum said the program emphasizes training early learning specialists with cultural and linguistic ties to the families they’ll be working with, rather than relying on specific degrees.

“My staff is indigenous to the community, which is a blessing, because then they know everyone,” said Jayson J. Green, the executive director of New Song. “Reaching out to families, reaching out to community members, getting people to buy in, is ... easier because we have people who are from the community.”

Families from Sandtown-Winchester who enter the program may recognize Trenae Phillips-Davis, one of the new early learning specialists. Previously, she was a family advocate through Elev8 Baltimore’s partnership with New Song, and would get to school about two hours before her 10 a.m. start time to greet kids at the morning drop-off.

Phillips-Davis has 15 years of classroom experience and loves working with kids — a big smile that brings out dimples appears whenever she talks about them. But she sees her new role more as empowering parents to be their kids’ first teacher.

“Nobody knows the child better than the parent,” Phillips-Davis said. “You’re giving them the tools so that they can lead the child and support the child.”

GreenLight Fund Baltimore has granted ParentChild+ $600,000 in startup capital over the next four years. GreenLight has already brought ParentChild+ to Philadelphia, Charlotte, North Carolina, and the San Francisco Bay Area.

GreenLight Vice President of Site Success Kate Schwass said investing in early childhood “pays dividends for years to come” and that ParentChild+ is building trust within communities — 30% of its instructors are former program parents.

The program provides “those really formative 2- and 3-year-old brains” a space to learn skills like holding scissors or working with paints, Schwass said. In cities where ParentChild+ is established, participating kids are “rock stars” once they move on to pre-K and kindergarten classrooms because “they already know all this stuff,” she added.

ParentChild+ hopes to be working with 100 Baltimore families by the end of next year, and 400 annually by 2028.

About the Education Hub

This reporting is part of The Banner’s Education Hub, community-funded journalism that provides parents with resources they need to make decisions about how their children learn. Read more.