Davenport Community School's Children's Village West

In the fall of 2004 NEA's Bus Trip with our Team NEA's President Reg Weaver visited Davenport Community School's Children's Village West. I vividly recall President Weaver grabbing hold of puppets he saw in a classroom and handing one off to Iowa's Lt. Governor Sally Pedersen, then entertaining us all with a puppet show. I really did look forward to returning to Children's Village West!

When I visited the facility in 2004, teacher Nancy Gesy had her pre-school classroom housed at Davenport West High. This fall marked the move of Nancy's program moving to the Children's Village West facility. Here (at right--and 2nd from right) is Nancy Gesy and several of her students. Nancy's Early Childhood Class has 15 students in the morning program that are Juniors and Seniors from the three Davenport High Schools. High School students earn 11 credits for the semester for the 2 Block morning class. Three days of the week the students have direct instruction from Mrs. Gesy on child development, followed by the students all developing a lesson plan that they will implement on the other 2 class days.

Pictured (on left) are more of the students from Nancy's morning group as they ham it up for me. I had a chance to visit with the group about their aspirations once they leave High School. Serveral of the students hope to enter a college of education to work towards becoming a teacher.











On our tour of the Chidren's Village West facility we got to see groups of children enjoying the large play areas. It was such a treat to see Nancy Gesy fitting in to her new classroom and new facility and continuing to love every minute of leading High School students and the early childhood program!