The PAKRAT (Parent and Kids Reading A-Lot Together) program has been a successful initiative in St. Cloud Area School District for several years. It’s now exciting to be introducing PAKCAT (Parents and Kids Counting A-Lot Together) to District 742 families. The PAKCAT program focuses on enhancing student math skills.
The idea began a few years ago with Melissa Hanzsek-Brill, math professor at St. Cloud State University, whose expertise is pre-K through grade eight mathematics. Years ago, she worked with District 742 to write a grant with United Way to start a program for math. However, the expanse of the grade levels (K-8) and cost of the project was an issue, so she tucked away the idea. It still remained a dream she wanted to achieve.
“I’ve been working with the District since 1997 and I’m also a parent. … What I’ve noticed is there has been a lot of … emphasis on reading. We have a library. We have PAKRAT. Just a lot of initiatives that are very much needed. There just weren’t a lot of math initiatives. … There is a lot of talk about the math scores, especially with the state scores going down [this year].”
Hanzsek-Brill’s old idea to create outreach and engagement with parents and their students around math was nagging her.
“PAKRAT has been amazing!” exclaims Hanzsek-Brill. “They’re sending books home every week with the students, even with a little instruction on how to read with your child. But I think we needed to add to that, to put in math. … I wanted a program to focus on math skills.”
It was happenstance when Hanzsek-Brill, while at a LEAF (Local Education and Activities Foundation) meeting, heard reading come up as a subject of discussion. She found her window of opportunity.
“We have all this reading stuff. We have the read and roll,” said Hanzsek-Brill at the table. “Why is there no math?”
Hanszek-Brill described her earlier attempt at a math initiative. Bruce Hentges, executive director of LEAF, jumped at the chance to explore the idea. The two, with the help of the Morgan Family Foundation, were able to obtain the funds to pilot the program in early childhood (preschool).
Teachers from early childhood, with the help of child and family studies professor Ming-Chi Own from St. Cloud State University, collaborated to create the program and establish what it would look like.
The premise that guided them was that math shouldn’t be daunting to either parents and students. The idea was to have something simple, fun and interactive to increase student math skills.
Students from the School of Education at St. Cloud State University assisted by assembling bags of math manipulatives and instructions to go home with District 742 students.
“The activity bag will have an instruction sheet and all the supplies they would need to do the activity,” explains Hanzsek-Brill. “The parent and student can pull out the activity and do it multiple times.”
The structure is similar to PAKRAT. Bags are sent home and brought back to school each week with new math exercises. The goal is to have students spend just 20 minutes or more each week on their math skills.
PAKCAT will be rolled out to early childhood families by the end of October in District 742. Families will be reading and counting together at home very soon!
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