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- EIN 35-1141484
- (317) 635-1491
- 901 Dr Martin Luther King Jr St Indianapolis IN 46202-4105 USA
- http://www.smccindy.org
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Nonprofit Overview
Causes: Child Day Care, Children & Youth, Children & Youth Services, Education, Preschools, Youth Development Programs
Mission: The children we serve are inherently competent, capable, and strong, st. Mary's child center: * impacts pre-school children in poverty -- who are at life and learning risk -- with the highest quality cognitive, creative, social, physical, and emotional learning experiences that will transition into a foundation for lifelong success. * integrates highly effective professional educators with a proven learning philosophy. * uses qualitative measures to show impact. * is accountable to the children and families served, stakeholders and contributors, and the early childhood learning community.
Programs: Transportation: st. Mary's serves children from impoverished area in marion county and most do not transportation to bring their child to school. St. Mary's had 8 buses in the community during our half daily program. There were 12 children on each of the routes which enabled us to transport about 120 children daily on our buses. Without transportation provided, the majority of these children would not be able to attend the high quality preschool.
curriculum: through the on my way pre-k program, st. Mary's child center served 277 children (103 children were full time students and 174 children were in our scholarship half day program. St. Mary's child center uses the reggio emilia approach which believes that children from birth are full of potential and possibilities and that it is the adults' responsibility to develop that potential. We provide a low adult to child ratio (1:7) to ensure that we can focus on the social and emotional, as well as cognitive and physical, development of the children. The high quality curriculum mitigates the risks to development and promotes school readiness to help the children reach their potential and be successful in school and later life. It is expected that poor children enter kindergarten at a 3 or 4 year development level. 83% of our children leaving for kindergarten were functioning at a 5 year old level in all developmental domains. Children are considered proficient if they are proficient in 80% of items within the category.
outreach program : st. Mary's educational outreach program provides teacher training to early childhood educators, focusing on teachers who work with children living in poverty. St. Mary's has been positioned carefully to provide teacher training about best practices and the reggio approach. We offer seminars, internships, consulting, and study tours. In addition, we provide coaching to schools looking for a more intensive professional development experience. St. Mary's educators also present at state level conferences regularly. The staff at st. Mary's is qualified and has studied the reggio approach around the world, and has been approved for site visits by american educators.