Florida’s first ‘classroom on wheels’ is in Manatee County, local coalition says

After years of moving students between their neighborhoods and schools, a Manatee County bus was destined for the scrapyard. The days of bringing students to their classrooms was over, but after a full renovation, it became the classroom.

The bus looked much like any other on the outside, but the inside was lined with folding tables, couches, activities and magnetic walls, along with laminate flooring and a 60-inch television.

Paul Sharff, the chief executive officer for the Early Learning Coalition of Manatee County, said he was inspired by a mobile preschool in Colorado.

With about $50,000 and 18 months of work, along with a bus from the school district, the coalition made Florida’s first Voluntary Prekindergarten classroom on wheels, Sharff said.

“The superintendent and I have a motto that if you can’t make it to get your education and come to us, we’ll bring it to you,” he said.

Starting at the end of June, the bus will start visiting child care providers in Manatee County, offering a mobile education in STEAM: science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics.

The bus — now known as the Mobile Learning Lab — was made possible by a $20,000 donation from the Kiwanis Club of Bradenton, a $6,000 donation from the Soar In 4 initiative and several fundraisers by the Early Learning Coalition of Manatee County.

The coalition expanded its fleet of educational vehicles with the renovated bus. Its other projects, the Book Bus and the STEAM Machine, bring activities and lessons to children throughout the county.

Sharff said a child’s brain is 90 percent developed by the age of 5, and that hands-on learning was essential for young students.

“Many children in disadvantaged families don’t have interaction,” he said. “They watch TV but it’s not the same as communicating with another individual, whether it be other children while they’re playing at a table, or whether it’s one of our instructors and someone talking with them.”

“You need that interaction to get the brain stimulated,” he continued.

A mobile education was one way to bridge the opportunity gap, and the school district hoped to transform more buses in the future, said Superintendent Cynthia Saunders, who toured the new Learning Lab on Wednesday afternoon.

“This is the first one, and we hope that we’ll be able to have many, many more,” she said.