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I contacted Diane Stromberg, the child development teacher at Webster Groves High School

from the first article, In Webster Groves a preschool thrives, thanks to high-schoolers. Ms.
Stromberg has run the hands-on child development program including the preschool for 41 years.

To analyze how the program has changed over time, I needed background information. I asked
Ms. Stromberg through email, “Has the child development class always been student run? If not,
when did you change it, and why?” I also asked her to elaborate on the types of changes she has
made. Ms. Stromberg replied:

It is now student run, but it used to be run solely by me. The first 10 years, I had
an aid. Her and I would switch back and forth from day to day running the
preschool, and running the classroom. This made it so that the high schoolers who
were taking the class would not spend as much time in the preschool. They would
spend a lot of their time in the classroom. My aid was amidst getting her early
childhood certification during this time. As soon as she got that, she moved on to
getting a job, and I became full time at the preschool. I did that for a number of
years, and it was a lot of work, without having very much help in the preschool.
about 20-30 years ago, I decided to change it to becoming more student oriented. I
changed it to this because I wanted to have more help in the preschool, and I
wanted the kids who were taking child development to have more experience
working directly with the kids. The high schoolers get more learning and benefit
out of it overall. When I originally started in the preschool, It was a play school.
Parents would come in 2 days a week, and would watch their kids for 1 hour. The
other 2 hours, they would leave them. It was such a short period of time to leave
them, that moms would usually just stay and play with them. The high schoolers
would not get as much experience because the kids would only want to play with
their moms. I have changed a lot of things, clearly. However I think that it is now
far more beneficial to both the preschoolers, and high schoolers.

I also wanted to know about the benefits of the program. I began by asking,
“How do the Preschoolers benefit from this type of program?” Ms. Stromberg explained:

The preschoolers have tons of interaction with adults. They get a very 1-1
experience than in traditional preschools. They are also much more easy-going
and adaptable due to getting to work with so many different type of people. They
have a great opportunity at a very cheap price, and it is great social experience,
for those kids who have stay at home moms, before they go to kindergarten.

Ms. Stromberg then explained community benefits and involvement the program provides:
The benefit for the community is mostly that it is just another preschool option for
parents to send their kids to. However, it is a very affordable option for parents
compared to most other preschools. We do charity events each and every year to
give back to the community. We also provide babysitting services to district
programs such as PTO meetings. We also do babysitting at big events in the
community such as the Jim Schoemehl, Ivory Crockett, and other runs. Parents
also often get babysitters just for their own homes from our preschool, after
seeing how well our kids work with kids. We advertise to the community through
the Webster-Kirkwood Times newspaper. Our high school community also
benefits from our preschool by seeing our events and things that we put on, such
as trick or treating from class to class. We don't impact the community all that
much, other than from individual kids and parents.

I wanted to know how costly a program like this is to get a better understanding I asked “What
funds are given to the preschool?” Ms. Stromberg explained:

Funding for our preschool is totally through parents tuition (about $6.00 a day).
We do not receive any funding through the school district other than custodial
manners, such as lighting, cleaning and few other things. We do receive grants,
but they are usually for toys, games, projects and other things through the parents
club, and form the Webster funds district. A lot of our stuff also comes from
parents who donate things that their kids grow out of or don't want anymore.

Lastly, since Ms. Stromberg has been doing this for a long time, I asked, “What is the most
challenging part about running a preschool like this?”

The most challenging thing about running the preschool is for sure time. It takes a
tremendous amount of time to run the preschool, in every aspect. I can't keep up
with all of the ideas I have for the future, as well as what we have on our plates at
the current time. Trying to fit in all of our projects, along with ordering all of the
things that we receive grants for takes a lot of time and effort. Cleaning and
organization is a huge problem just because I don't prioritize those things over the
million other things that need to get done, especially day to day for lesson plans
and activities. Grading and actual classroom work, along with the preschool is just
exhausting at how many things need to be accomplished. I would love to be doing
more in the future, However finding the time to do it all is seemingly impossible.

(D. Stromberg, personal communication, April 8, 2019)

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