New teacher program may save full-day kindergarten

PHOENIX-- Governor Doug Ducey's program Arizona Teachers Academy promises to create and retain teachers in Arizona, combatting a decades-long shortage that forced schools to make drastic cuts. 

There are some unlikely benefactors of this new program too. At Starlight Park Elementary, kindergarteners are spending yet another day in school learning numbers with counting blocks. Their teacher, Teresa Gibbs, walks around and offers help.

"...five, six, eight, nine," one little girl says to Gibbs.

"Can you check that for me?" Gibbs responds, "You missed a number."

For Gibbs, programs like the Teachers Academy are a victory for her kindergarteners who just started school and are already at risk of falling behind.

Gibbs has been teaching kindergarten for over a decade. Her students are English Language Learners (ELL), kids who may have never spoken English or stepped into a classroom until now.

"Children who never had these additional exposures--going to preschool or [having] literature in their homes--I think the full day kindergarten better prepares them."

Starlight Park is one of many Title I schools that offer this.

Eileen Guerrero went that route, despite worrying about her daughter's discipline.

"She came in a baby and she came out this full-grown little girl that can read," Guerrero said.

Now in first grade, her daughter, Emma, isn't scrambling to catch up to her peers.

"I like math," she said.

Programs like these are in jeopardy around the state and country, but teachers say it is critical to give English Language Learners the full-day option so they aren't playing catch-up in first grade. Kids can learn the basics, like counting, and learn what matters to them.

"I know how many hearts a squid has," Emma said. "They have three hearts."