Rob:  In the past decade, the cost of day care has increased by about one third, and quality providers are still difficult to find.  Getting squeezed by it all, are parents wanting to provide the very best for their children.  As our Russ Jowell shows us, a new certification program should help mom and dad know just what they’re getting for their money.
Russ:  Jennifer Riley spends her mornings movin’ and groovin’ to some pretty sweet tunes.
Jennifer Riley:  This is just our circle time.  We go over our colors.  And, we do the songs in English and Spanish.
Russ:  Jennifer works as a preschool teacher here at the Caddo Kiowa Tech Center in Fort Cobb.  And while her job is to help mold the young minds of tomorrow, her time in the classroom, today, is also helping to mold her own future.
Riley:  I work full time, and then I take the class at night.
Russ:  Jennifer is a student in the Pathway to C-D-A, a revolutionary new program that’s helping to better prepare Oklahoma’s preschool teachers for the challenges of early childhood education.
Gina McPhearson:  It is kind of a stepping stone, if you will, into the early care and education field.
Russ:  The CDA, or Child Development Associates certificate, is a nationally recognized training credential in the childcare field, and Pathway founders, Vicki Rexroat and Gina McPhearson, envisioned their program as a way to put CDA certification within closer reach of Oklahoma’s teachers.
Vicki Rexroat:  One of the exciting things is that, we have so many delivery methods.  And with unique circumstances of the students that this class may attract, we have a lot of people that work full-time jobs, and so coming during the day is not very accessible for them.
Russ:  For students, like Jennifer, who is also a single mother, the class is a good fit for her busy life, because it allows her to take what she learns in evening class and apply it to situations she’ll face in her daily work; situations, like, morning circle time.
Judy Hays:  Everybody in here is raised up differently.  You all come from different backgrounds, but we can all blend together and learn from each other.
Russ:  Judy Hays is one of the instructors in the Pathway program, who emphasizes the importance of providing hands-on training to her class.
Hays:  It gives them a feel for what they’re actually going to be working with, with the children.  When we work in groups, as we did earlier, that gives them a communication, a sharing of ideas, a feedback; and I feel like that’s very important for the students to learn. Otherwise they’re just going to be looking at a book and learning from the book and the videos that are provided.
Hays:  At what age would you introduce the babies; where you can undress them?  At least three.
Rexroat:  And I really feel that the most unique thing about this training method that we’re doing is that, the instructor can take the curriculum and make it meet the needs of the students that she’s training.
Russ:  Back at Fort Cobb, Jennifer has found a unique way to apply the life-like dolls in her own classroom.
Riley:  We are washing the babies, and it just helps them with their self esteem; like we clean every day, we take baths every day.  We just show them, you wash your legs and just show them how to wash.  Do you want a wash rag?
Riley:  We don’t do a lot of sit down things with the kids, because we believe that how they learn is best through play.
Russ:  And it’s through that same playtime that Jennifer, herself, is becoming better equipped to shape the young minds of tomorrow.
McPhearson:  We know, through research, that quality is tied very closely to education; and so we know it’s an extremely important piece of working with children, is to also have that education. 
Russ:  An education that makes playtime more than just silly sounds.