New early learning center to offer foundational skills in Coastal Bend
The new Boys and Girls Clubs of the Coastal Bend Early Learning Center is set to open Tuesday, expanding services to offer children foundational skills in early childhood education.
Community members gathered outside the renovated 15,000-square-foot building at 10102 South Padre Island Drive in Flour Bluff on Thursday to celebrate and tour the new facility. It will cater to the developmental needs of young children ranging from infancy to 5 years old in a supportive environment.
Kim Barrientos, president and CEO of BGCCB, lauded the community and board in supporting the effort to build capacity to provide life-changing opportunities for young people from nearby neighborhoods to discover and learn.
“This is an incredibly significant moment for us as we expand our mission to serve the youth of the Coastal Bend,” she said. “Today, we’re not just unlocking our doors. We’re unlocking bountiful potential.”
ELC’s new programming will feature the Hatch curriculum, designed to engage and instruct children while providing teachers with real-time data that helps document student progress.
Students will access digital learning programs on tablets to create play-based technologies in seven subjects, including language and communication, literacy and social emotional development.
Children will be able to participate in guided practice experiences to develop math and literacy skills scaffolded with visual and verbal support and daily individualized instruction. The integrated software will enable teachers to monitor cognitive, social and academic skills as they progress to kindergarten.
Corpus Christi ISD has signed on as a BGCCB partner, and beginning in August, the BGCCB will participate with 13 schools to provide after-school care and summer learning. ELC has hired two teachers to instruct 3-year-old students and 4- to 5-year-olds, respectively, as well as a childcare development professionals. Plans include hiring a paraprofessional.
After the ceremony, guests toured the building's newly transformed interior, a former doctor's office that now includes multiple rooms for children of different ages, imagination stations, Hatch floors, Demco furniture, hardline phones and bulletproof glass to ensure the safety of learners.
The ELC will serve as an ancillary facility to the BGCCB headquarters at 3902 Greenwood Drive.
This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: Boys and Girls Clubs Early Learning Center in Coastal Bend
