Published: June 03, 2009 06:55 am      

Districts to work together on project

TRAVERSE CITY -- Two regional school districts combined efforts to improve the lives of the area's youngest children.

The Manistee and Traverse Bay Area intermediate school districts will work together on a grant-funded project for the state's Great Start program, an initiative that aims to improve early childhood resources in local communities and prepare children for school.

In all, the merged project will include Grand Traverse, Benzie, Leelanau, Kalkaska, Antrim and Manistee counties. Both ISDs oversee individual school districts in their counties.

Manistee this year received an 18-month, $180,000 grant from the statewide Early Childhood Investment Corporation, an association that helps fund the Great Start regional groups.

The grants will be used to study the counties' available health and education services and identify priority needs. The two organizations will partner because TBA received a similar grant a year ago, is further along in the study and is within proximity to Manistee.

"The timing is really good," said Kerry Baughman, coordinator of the five-county Traverse Bay Great Start. "They can sort of hop on board."

The first major component is the completion of a status report, which Baughman projects will happen in July when Manistee's data is included.

The survey indicates that nearly 70 percent of children in five counties have working parents, but access to daycare programs "is a huge issue for our families" in the region's rural areas, she said.

Additionally, the study shows fees for child care are comparable to those of other areas, but average income here is lower.

The findings will be used to improve existing services in such ways as creating a unified enrollment process and raising money to start new programs, Baughman said.

It's not that people aren't already doing these things, said Mary Sue Wilkinson, a Great Start specialist for Manistee and Benzie counties. But the end result will be "stronger" by combining efforts.

For instance, she said, a Benzie County family living near the Manistee line could learn about schools or health care in either county through the partnership.

And strengthening services that already exist is seen as a more practical option given that the state's fiscal picture is in shambles.

"Let's be honest, this is not an easy time to be trying to leverage funds for anything," Wilkinson said. "We have to think smarter than that right now."