New Year, New Direction

Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.  ~John Dewey

DCPS Preschool

Welcome back! This is our first newsletter for the new 2016-2017 school year. We hope you have had a chance to relax and enjoy your time with friends and family this summer. It has been a busy summer for us at the preschool office. This summer we spent a lot of time planning supports for many of our classrooms throughout the district.

        *Kentucky All Stars*

What is Kentucky All STARS?

Kentucky All STARS is Kentucky’s expanded five-star quality rating and improvement system for early care and education programs. Studies show that children who attend high quality early learning environments have better math, language and social skills. The unified system serves all early care and education programs that receive public funding including child care centers, Head Start and public preschool. Kentucky All STARS is based on Kentucky’s Early Childhood Standards and research-based indicators of quality. It recognizes programs that have made a commitment to continuous quality improvement. On the path toward higher quality, programs can benefit from supports including training, technical assistance and coaching. 

How do programs earn their rating? ​

On the expanded five-star scale, STARS level one is obtained by meeting regulatory requirements. STARS level two is obtained by completing a set of required domains and standards. STARS levels three through five feature a range of points programs must meet in order to meet to move up on the rating scale. While there are required domains for these three STARS levels, programs can choose from a menu of standards to fulfill the requirements. 

To learn more about Kentucky All STARS, the Standards of Quality, and to view the timeline, please access the  resources on the right. Be sure to visit the official Kentucky All STARS website at www.kentuckyallstars.org​for resources and up-to-date​ information. 

Currently the Daviess County Public School Preschool Program has completed the application for the All Stars program and are waiting for further direction from the state.

*Reminders*

• Check all of your IEPs for review dates. You should schedule your first meeting 10-14 days prior to the IEP end date (this allows for multiple attempts to contact the parent and get them involved if needed).
• We will have new ECERS-3 training this year and hope to target that in September.
• We are still working on the Program Review and hope to have results from that by October.
• Please remember to put your attendance in Infinite Campus and turn it in monthly to Stephanie.
• For T5 students, please make sure that your building secretary is aware of them and that the need is indicated on the conference summary, and that it is on the IEP.

             *Dates to remember*

• Transition Days -- August 10-18th
• ARC meetings for the year due to Stephanie by September 9th
• August 12th and 19th ARC meetings. On August 12th each teacher will do their own meetings. On August 19th Donna Howard, Krista, and Christina are scheduled to work that day.
• September 2nd is our next staff meeting.

May Monthly Message posted on behalf of Terry Tolan, Governor's Office of Early Childhood

Thank you for taking the time to read the May monthly message from The Governor's Office of Early Childhood and the Early Childhood Advisory Council. Our objective for the monthly message is to speak with one voice and offer resources for families and communities. As supporters of early childhood, we believe that Kentucky must provide families with the right tools so every child in every community arrives at kindergarten ready to grow, ready to learn and ready to succeed.

This month, our message focuses on the General Knowledge and Mathematics domain of the School Readiness definition. 

Below is a link to our May monthly message homepage where you can access an interactive document or a standard PDF. 

May Monthly Message

Terry Tolan
Governor's Office of Early Childhood

Soft Skills in Children

Posted for the Governor's Office of Early Childhood:

The Governor’s Office of Early Childhood believes that parents are a child’s first and most important teacher. There is no more important and amazing responsibility than to help your child grow emotionally and socially. These so called “soft skills” are critical to their future development and success; and research shows that emotional and social development provides the foundation for how we feel about ourselves and how we experience others. Please share this with your friends and neighbors with small children. Our goal is to have every child in Kentucky; Ready to Grow, Ready to Learn and ready to Succeed.   

The Social/Emotional Standard is for a child to demonstrate trust and engage in social relationships; and sense of self.
Your child’s feelings about themselves, as well as developing relationships with others will be very helpful in all other areas of his/her development

10 “soft” Skills of a Child who is Kindergarten Ready
Social and Emotional Development/ Approaches to Learning

1)     Is curious and initiates learning experiences; Persists in activities and tasks

2)     Is learning to explore and try new things; Asks questions and knows rules

3)     Is learning to work well alone and is learning to cooperate with others children

4)     Can follow simple instructions and uses self control; can help with simple chores

5)     Participates and shows interest in creative activities; Uses a variety of materials

6)     Expresses positive outlook; expresses needs and wants verbally

7)     Cooperates and shows concern for others; gives help to others

8)     Engages in symbolic / imaginative play with self or peers (plays house, fireman)

9)     Expresses curiosity and eagerness for learning (tries new activities, asks questions)

10) Listens to adults and follows simple directions; Shows independence in self-help skills.

The skills listed above are helpful for children to know before entering Kindergarten. The indicators included represent the hopes and aspirations for incoming students, not the expectations. Kentucky recognizes that children develop and learn at different rates and times. Not every child will master all of the skills and behaviors listed above prior to Kindergarten. These skills and behaviors are not used to determine school eligibility. In Kentucky, all children who meet the legal age requirement are entitled to enter public school.

Professor James Heckman on Early Childhood Investment and Socio Emotional “soft” Skills

“Such early efforts promote schooling, reduce crime, foster workforce productivity and reduce teenage pregnancy. They have rates of return to investment that are higher than the return to investments in the stock market even in normal times.”

“If a child is not motivated and engaged to learn early on in life, the more likely it is that when the child becomes an adult, he or she will fail in social and economic life.”

“In promoting successful lives, we need to recognize the multiplicity of human abilities. Currently, public policy in most countries around the world—and the U.S. is no exception—focuses on promoting and measuring cognitive ability as measured by achievement tests. There is no question that cognitive abilities are important determinants of socioeconomic success. However, there is also decisive evidence that socio emotional skills—physical and mental health, perseverance, attention, motivation, and self-confidence—are as important in predicting success in life. In many tasks in life, they are more important. There is hard evidence on the power of “soft” skills. They contribute greatly to performance in society at large and in workforce productivity.”

“Invest in prevention, not remediation.” 

The information below was requested to be distributed from Kentucky's Governor's Office of Early Childhood.

Kindergarten Screener
The Kentucky Department of Education piloted a common kindergarten entry screen in 109 school districts across the commonwealth during the 2012-13 school year. In the 2013-14 school year all 174 districts across Kentucky will be required to implement the screen. 

·         Why is this important?  We know the earliest years are the most important – providing the highest rate of return of any social investment (James Heckman) Kentucky has been investing in early childhood education since KERA and we led the way in many areas including a Quality-Rating system for child care and spending for pre-kindergarten.

·         What are we doing about it? For the first time we have pilot data showing how our investment is paying off.  We have mixed results across KY – strong social emotional but not so strong in cognitive areas. Also, for the first time we have comprehensive data about early childhood in each county in KY. Communities can assess their system of early childhood services to help increase quality.

·         How can you help? Schools, families and communities must work together to move the needle on school readiness.

Visit http://education.ky.gov/curriculum/prim/pages/common-kindergarten-entry-screener.aspx

This screen was given to obtain a quick snapshot of a child’s abilities at one point in time and represents only one data point for a child. The screener results, along with other data on curriculum, assessment and instructional practices, should guide communities toward continuous improvement in school readiness efforts. It is important to remember that the screen results cannot be used to prohibit a child who meets the age requirement from
entering school.

Following best practice in early childhood, the screener considers the whole child, including all
five domains of a child’s development: cognitive, language, motor, social emotional and self-help skills.  Approaches to learning are intertwined within both the basic screen and the social emotional/self-help scales.  It is the goal of both the Kentucky Department of Education and the Governor’s Office of Early Childhood to encourage communities and school districts to enhance supports and resources for families, early childhood programs and communities for young children, birth to five years old.

It is critical that young children are exposed to high-quality learning environments and developmentally appropriate experiences to promote success in kindergarten. We must begin early to ensure that every child is on track to graduate from high school ready for success in college, career and life.  High-quality environments must include Head Start, public preschool, child care and other community programs serving young children and their families. The transition into public school at kindergarten is very important.

This detailed continuous assessment data can provide a wealth of information about each child’s abilities that kindergarten teachers can use along with anecdotal records from parents and guardians, health, vision and hearing screening data, and the common kindergarten screen data to support a young child’s transition into the kindergarten classroom. Schools have a responsibility to their communities and families to interpret and use the screen results appropriately to ensure that every student entering kindergarten receives the teaching and learning experiences to succeed early on – and that means a focus on reading and math proficiency by third grade, leading to greater success in later years. 

Early Childhood Profile

The Governor’s office of Early Childhood is excited to announce the creation of the 2013 Early Childhood Profiles. Communities and families now have access to important early childhood data through the profiles that provide rich data about the state of early childhood in each individual county. 

·         Why is this important?   This data can be used, along with other local information, to continuously improve programs and better prepare young children to be ready to succeed when they enter school. The Early Childhood Profile provides communities with data that lets them know what they are doing well and where areas of improvement are.

·         What are we doing about it? The Early Childhood Profile can help change the conversation in each community in Kentucky to achieve the following goals: Every Kentucky child will enter school ready to succeed; every parent will know what their child needs to be ready for school; and every community will
come together in support of their youngest children.  

·         How can you help? Visit the website below, print out your county and share with your community.

Visit http://kidsnow.ky.gov/School%20Readiness/Pages/profiles.aspx

The Early Childhood Profile was released on March 12th by The Governor’s Office of Early Childhood and is designed to provide each county in Kentucky with important data that has never been together before in one place. It is combined into one user friendly document that will assist communities in developing local strategies to assure that every child in their community arrives at kindergarten ready to learn, ready to grow and ready to succeed. 

The Profiles contain results from the kindergarten screener pilot and provides information about participation in publicly funded preschool, head start and child care.  It also includes information about the quality and availability of child care and the education of the early childhood workforce.  Finally, demographic data is provided representing key indicators of possible barriers to success for young children and their families and participation in public health and social service programs that can help.

It is our hope that this compilation of data in the 2013 Early Childhood Profile will create local dialogue and inform local action to improve early childhood outcomes. We believe that what gets measured gets done.  Making sure every child in the Commonwealth gets the best possible start in life must be everyone’s priority. 

For more information, call the Governor’s
Office of Early Childhood at (502) 782-0200
 125 Holmes Street
Frankfort, KY 40601
http://kidsnow.ky.gov
Sources: Kentucky Department of Education and Brigitte Blom Ramsey/United Way

Kentucky's Early Learning Profile

The Governor’s Office of Early Childhood has released the 2013 Early Childhood Profile for the Ohio County School District. I have attached this document to the email for your review. Information listed in the documents includes Kindergarten Readiness results, demographics information, enrollment data, STARS participants, and support services.

           

The Kindergarten Readiness assessment was piloted this year by 109 districts throughout the state. Results from the districts that participated indicate that 72% of children in the state of Kentucky are not ready for school without support. This screener was implemented to gain more information and to help identify where our gaps are in Kentucky. This profile is a way to change culture within communities from what you think about early childhood education -- to using data to show what you know.

In the profile there are two different types of screening data used: composite and domain level. The composite score (cognitive areas only) identifies the students ready or ready with enrichments (the social emotional/self help is not included in the composite score). The second area is the domain level scores which show the items on the assessment for that particular level. The box pie chart is weighted score and looks at the national level of children based on the performance in each assessment area. Any community actions should be driven by the domain level. Future profiles will include data about the “prior settings” of incoming kindergarteners. (Prior settings means where the student was prior to kindergarten; State-funded preschool, Head Start, Home, Child care, other.)

The profile is a way to identify what the strengths and weaknesses in a district are. As a council we utilize this information when planning activities during the grant writing process. The Governor’s Office of Early Childhood plans to use this Early Childhood Profile as an exit indicator for how well our district performs at the early childhood level. Schools will have an opportunity to use this as a beginning indicator showing where the student is when they start.

Click the link below to learn more about the Early Childhood Profile or to see how your district rated.
http://kidsnow.ky.gov/News%20Center/Pages/Early%20Childhood%20Profiles%20Released.aspx

Building Parental Engagement at the Preschool Level

At Ohio County Public Preschool our motto is “Nurturing Children and Families.” As I read Involvement or Engagement, by Larry Ferlazzo in the May 2011 issue of Educational Leadership I reflect back to the core meaning of those words. As preschool educators we focus on the care and development of our early childhood students. Even though we focus on students, there is another prime component that we must include – the families. According to this article the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory indicates that having the right kind of relationship with families has many benefits for students including “higher grade point averages and test scores, better attendance, enrollment in more challenging courses, better social skills, and better behavior at home and school.”

Ferlazzo also points out that there are two distinctly different ways that schools get parents to participate. The first is family involvement. Furthermore, according to Ferlazzo when you use the word involve, you are implying that you are “doing something to” families. These may be projects, goals, or needs that families can help with. On the flip side of this you have family engagement. When you use the term engagement, you are implying that you are “doing something with” families. Schools focused on family engagement listen to parents and strive to gain partners in the educational process.

So, how does our program work to promote parent engagement? First, one of the components of our preschool program is home visits. The home visits serve two different objectives. The first objective is to share with the family’s information regarding our preschool program. The second, more important objective is for us to learn more about the child from the family themselves. Their child’s likes, dislikes, and their goals for the child’s future. Another way we build family engagement is by including parents in self assessments. These self assessments give us a platform in which we engage parents and gain insights into our program and how we can improve and strengthen our family ties and communication. Third, we have parent advocates which help establish family engagement. These family advocates work with the families building on their strengths and developing plans to help the family address any areas of concern. They review parents’ goals with the teaching staff. They help families get access to the resources they need including social services, education, and parent training. Finally, we work toward parent engagement with our curriculum. We use Creative Curriculum Online as our instructional assessment in our preschool program. This program allows parents to have computerized access to their child’s work in the preschool room as well as providing activities that they can work with their child on in the home setting. This curriculum component allows for two way communication between the families and teacher on an ongoing basis through an email component.

What are some of the ways your school is trying to build parent engagement?