"ExCel"ing in Change

Tammy Willford is the Program Coordinator at the ExCel Developmental Preschool (ExCel) in the eastern part of Carbon County. She also is a teacher at ExCel.

For the last 35 years, she taught in the same building that was located on Spring Avenue next to St. Ann’s Parish Hall.

In January, ExCel moved to the Ray A. Corbett building owned by Valley Village Childcare (VVC).

As the Program Coordinator, Willford helps to oversee the appropriate paperwork required by the state for the preschools in Saratoga, Encampment and Hanna. The paperwork is required by the state and federal entities that fund the schools. Willford does the office work in the morning and teaches in the afternoons.

Willford said  Wee Folks in Hanna is a private preschool, but they contract with ExCel for special services.

Saratoga resident Karen Youngberg serves on the board and is the representative and liaison for Carbon County.

Early intervention

ExCel is not just a preschool, it is a developmental preschool which means they offer special services for children who have a delay in their development. This also allows for the preschool to have state and federal funding for students who are on an Individual Education Plan (IEP) which is for children three years and above.

ExCel screens the children to see if they are at the age appropriate level they should be, or if they need help to get to that level. It is free to anyone.

Childhood developmental screenings are important for every child from birth to five years old because 90% of a child’s brain develops before their fifth birthday.

ExCel provides free developmental screenings to all children under age 5 in the area and encourages parents to take advantage of a free developmental screening every year for their child. The screening will examine a child’s development in the areas of cognition, speech and language, gross and fine motor, hearing and vision.To schedule an appointment for screening, call 307-326-5839.

Children should have at least two different screenings before they enter school. One is from birth to three years old and the other is from three to five year old children.

All developmental services are provided under contract with the Department of Health, Behavioral Health Division with monitoring and oversight by the Wyoming Department of Education, according to albany.wyokids.org/developmental-services.The state is divided into regions  which provide services for developmental delay and disability education for children. Jamie Stine is the executive director over Region VIII (Carbon County) and Region XI (Albany County) and oversees the developmental preschools in both counties. Staffing for special services are provided by highly-qualified licensed staff, with a focus on in person services as much as possible and teletherapy services as necessary in areas where there is a lack of services providers who live in the area.

Project Reach director in Rawlins, Nicole Maravilla, is also part of Region VIII and serves as the  special education director in Carbon County preschools.

In Saratoga, Melody Posey-Harris is the special education teacher who provides services to children with special education needs. She works with children in Saratoga, Encampment and Hanna.. The developmental preschool employs or contracts with counselors, physical therapists, occupational therapists and speech language pathologists to ensure all children receive all necessary services to help them be successful in school.

Willford said they have so many success stories in helping the children

The New Building

Willford said she loves the newness of the building, but there are some things she misses about the central location of Spring Avenue.

The children were able to walk to the Platte Valley Community Center Gym and Saratoga Elementary School. They were also able to walk to the United States Post Office to deliver their letter to Santa’s mailbox. Since the preschool does not have a bus, and it would require another employee working a very limited amount of hours, the bus is not justifiable.

Another thing Willford misses is being able to walk the children down to the fire station, as that was the highlight of the year for the children. The Saratoga Volunteer Fire Department brought a truck to the preschool, but Willford said it was not the same as visiting the fire station.

After working in the same building for 34 years, Willford is getting used to having two large rooms for the children, but it wasn’t enough for all the equipment they had at the old location. Most of the storage is in one of the large classrooms they use for working on gross motor skills.

The pros seem to outweigh the cons, as Willford said it was inconvenient for the parents to come and pick up their children from daycare and take them to the preschool. Now they have an agreement with the parents where the VVC employees can walk the children over to the preschool and sign them in and out.

In the old building, there were a lot of bandaids, including the heating system going out. The Spring Avenue location was protected from the wind, so even on days that the weather was cold and windy, the children could play in the playground. At the new building, there is a lot of wind and when “it is cold and nasty, there is no going outside,” Willford said.

On nice days, the staff can take the older kids to play at Kathy Glode Park and Willford said that has been nice.

The Classes

ExCel has three classes during the week. The preschool is licensed for 39 children. In the morning they have 15 three-year-olds from 8 - 11:15 a.m. From Noon-3:15 p.m. there are 16 students in the  four and five-year-olds kindergarten class. On Fridays, the school has a toddler class for the two-year-old children from 8:30 - 9:30 a.m., to get the children used to being away from their parents for an hour and getting used to sharing with other children. That class has 5 children.

The teachers at ExCel include Willford, who teaches the pre kindergarten class along with Taylor Bennett, Kim Neville teaches in the morning class and Bennett helps Neville as well.  The curriculum for the children in the 4-5 year old age group include Sight Word.  Every week, the students learn one letter. It includes the upper and lower case letter. They start the day with a story that starts with that letter. The first letter students learn is the letter “O”, as it is the easiest letter to learn. The last letter to learn is “Q”. The letters are not taught in alphabetical order, but rather in the ease of identifying the letter. They learn 13 letters in the first semester, then spend the last two weeks before Christmas break, the students review the letters.

Willford said this has been a successful curriculum for her and she has used it for years.

The preschool also uses We Can Early Learning Curriculum which includes phonemic awareness. It reinforces the letter of the week program, where children learn how to form letters and strokes.

Handwriting Without Tears is another curriculum used by the preschool and is also used by CCSD#2. This curriculum teaches the students how to write letters using the touch-pull-down method.

Willford said having the childcare next door has been really nice. “The staff [at VVC] is really easy to get along with and I hope they feel the same way about us,” Willford said.