By Cynthia Grau/WJEZ News
State Representative Tom Bennett was joined by local law enforcement to read to preschoolers in Pontiac Monday morning to show support in the fact that children attending preschool make them less likely to commit crimes later in life.
Fight Crime: Invest in Kids Illinois organized the day, where Bennett was joined by Livingston County State’s Attorney Randy Yedinak, Livingston County Sheriff Tony Childress and Ford County Sheriff Mark Doran for a morning of reading to preschoolers at Pontiac’s Central School.
While working in Springfield and supporting aspects of school funding and working on the budget in general, Bennett enjoyed the morning reading to the children and agrees that crime prevention really does start with children.
“Preschool education is so important and there’s a lot of interest in Springfield and around the state in providing more funds for preschool. Connect the dots, it all makes sense. If we have the good folks that grow and develop and are educated and understand about the communities and support the communities, it’s a wonderful thing to have. But if you have folks that go through school and get behind and don’t learn the important pieces of education, about how to take care of themselves and jobs and work ethic and all of those kind of things, they go in a different direction. As a community and a society, we work with all of them, so this is a wonderful thing to do,” Bennett said.
Childress says, while it will take time to see results in the children as they grow, he knows early intervention is the way to go.
“I hope that we don’t see any negative results, as we know probably will be in some cases, however, I think we owe it to ourselves and to these children to do the best we can to try to keep them from becoming criminal statistics and the best intervention, as I have always said and always will believe, is early intervention, so I want to be a part of that just as much as anybody and I want to help children do the best they can not to become criminal statistics,” Childress said.
Doran said he enjoyed the day, reading to the preschoolers.
“I think the more you can spend with the little people, the better off we’re all going to be. I had a blast. Great bunch of kids. Support childhood education, K through 4, 5 and 6. Very important,” Doran said.
Yedinak looks to see incidences in youth crimes continue to fall as preschool programs continue to improve.
“Hopefully those numbers continue to drop. We’re doing an excellent job here in the county with our school programs, specifically with the pre-K program, so hopefully it continues,” Yedinak said.
Central School Principal Kel Krenz watches his students day to day and has for nearly 20 years. He hopes the state will help fund these programs that have proven successful.
“First of all, I’m not seeing a new program, per se. I think these are some initiatives to try to promote the current programs we are currently offering. I think we’re seeing an influx, we’re seeing an increase of the need for pre-k and early childhood special education students, and therefore an increase in needed resources and services. That’s really where I’m hoping the state will step in and help fund some of these expanding programs,” Krenz said.
