Sussex County childcare effort supports Latino children, parents

The Milton Elementary School gymnasium was bustling. 

A flurry of children swarmed between indoor soccer goals as they whooped and yelled during the match. Across the gym, the surface of two conjoined plastic tables was barely visible on a recent Thursday evening. 

The tabletops were enveloped in stacks of drawings, Lego towers, bunches of colored pencils and creased UNO cards. Children studied their intricate Lego designs on one side of the table as others furiously colored their drawings on the other end. 

Katherine Tepaz Castillo was in the middle of it all.

Tepaz Castillo sat at the center of the table as a little girl proudly showed her her most recent drawing. The raucous and restless gymnasium was exactly what 17-year-old Tepaz Castillo wished she had when she came to Delaware from Guatemala in 2018.

“When I came here, I didn’t have any of this,” Tepaz Castillo said. “I just wanted them to have the opportunity I didn’t have.”

The scene was part of the Milton Elementary School Bilingual Family Literacy Program, which helps promote bilingual literacy among Spanish-speaking parents and children while strengthening their relationships. Tepaz Castillo, a senior at Cape Henlopen High School, formed part of the program’s childcare initiative through Cape’s Latin American Student Organization (LASO). 

A handful of LASO students volunteer their Thursday nights to help watch over children as their parents improve their literacy skills in the library down the hall. The literacy program has been running on and off since 2017 and has only grown as the population of multilingual learners (MLL) in Sussex County has skyrocketed in recent years. 

MLL students made up 10% of the total student population in Delaware with 66% of them being elementary students in 2022, according to the Rodel Foundation, a state nonprofit that works on education policy. 

The childcare program has fostered a sense of community and support for young Latino students. The program has created a space where children can feel comfortable speaking in Spanish or English while having older Latino mentors who can help show them the importance of education, volunteers said. 

“These kids deserve the entire world,” said Miranda Vasquez-Vergel, volunteer and LASO president, as she played a game of UNO with a student nearby. “It’s just opening these kids up to the fact that, ‘Oh, you can do more than just go to school and then drop out and start working.’”

Latino high school students have consistently had the highest dropout percentage of any demographic in Delaware from 2020 to 2022, according to the Delaware Department of Education. Latinos had a dropout rate of 3.7% compared to the statewide rate of 2.5% in the 2021-2022 school year. 

It means a lot for the children when they show up and see that volunteers such as Vasquez-Vergel and Tepaz Castillo are about to graduate and go to college, Tepaz Castillo said. 

“It gives them an idea that they can also do it,” said Tepaz Castillo, LASO vice president. 

The program provides a “third place” for children to be in that isn’t home or school, where they may not be engaged in many activities, she added. 

Childcare is an essential part of the literacy program, given many parents would not be able to attend classes if the care wasn’t free and available. Some children have convinced their parents to attend the classes so the kids can play soccer with their friends. 

“While we’re learning, our children are also learning something,” said Clara Ramiréz Ramos, a literacy program attendee and parent of one of the children. “It’s a great support that the teenagers are here to help us with our kids.”

LASO students are able to count the volunteer hours toward their graduation requirement and the literacy program receives childcare help that wouldn’t be possible otherwise, given funding restrictions. 

“If I don’t have childcare, I don’t have a program,” said Jacqueline Wager, the literacy program coordinator and multilingual teacher at Milton Elementary School.  “These kids are really giving something important to the program.”

The literacy program helps parents establish nightly reading routines with their children while also teaching parents how to navigate the U.S. school system and advocate for their children.

In the Milton elementary gymnasium, the night stretched on and the program ended. Parents walked in, picked their children up and left the school. 

The once-busy gymnasium was now empty and silent.

Tepaz Castillo helped clear the tables and organize the space. The program’s current class would graduate the following week and Tepaz Castillo would follow soon after, heading toward higher education.

Her contribution to a resource she wished she had years ago was nearly complete.