Education reform fueled by Race to the Top funding is well underway in Delaware K-12 classrooms, but now early childhood learning is also getting a fresh look, taking a “whole child” approach.
Delaware has been in the front of the line in every phase of the Race to the Top federal grant program, including last December when it was awarded $49.9 million in the Early Learning Challenge phase. The grant came after Gov. Jack Markell set aside $20 million of the state’s budget for early learning programs.
Last summer Harriet Dichter was hired as executive director of the Office of Early Learning. She comes with a deep background in early childhood learning, including working with Gov. Ed Rendell to strengthen Pennsylvania’s Keystone STARS early childhood learning program and then working on national programs for “birth through five” learning in Washington DC and around the country.
The Office of Early Learning is not a part of the Department of Education, but is instead connected directly to the governor’s office and works with DDOE, Health and Human Services and the Kids Department.
“Early learning, one of the great joys of it to me is you have a whole lot of different players you are bringing to together to focus hard and focus responsibly on how we’re serving young children and their families,” Dichter said. She said stakeholders and providers include everyone from local school districts to private childcare programs and non-profits, all working toward the same goal – developing young learners.
To develop these learners, providers and parents are not simply working on literacy, language and math, but also on the child’s mental, emotional and physical development. That “whole child ” approach means a lot of moving parts in a lot of different areas.
“The issues we’re addressing are a little bit complex, so some of the solutions deserve a little bit of complexity,” Dichter said. “What we’ve done is we’ve set priorities in each of our big areas that we think will generate the greatest amount of change and greatest amount of impact and support for young kids and their families in the state.”
One point of focus is optimizing the Delaware Stars for Early Success system to give parents information on area early childhood centers and programs. Stars is a voluntary statewide program, headed up by program director Rena Hallam, that provides a quality rating and improvement system for early childhood education programs.
It uses financial incentives and on-site technical assistance to early childhood programs to improve both administration and education within the programs. Through participating in Stars, centers will have a consistent quality and set of standards to provide consistent, high quality early education to families.
Through a recent push to get more Delaware early learning centers onboard, Stars has grown participation from 178 centers last year to 338 centers in the latest round of applications, Hallam said recently.
Cheryl Clendaniel, administrator at The Learning Center in Milford, said being a part of the Delaware Stars program has been invaluable. The center recently celebrated its 33rd anniversary serving children, but she knows there are always improvements that can be made the assistance of the state program has already helped.
“I tried to use federal performance standards on my own as an administrator, but I had no support or back-up,” she said during a panel discussion at the Vision 2015 Conference. “Stars is very encouraging and has a framework for improving quality.”
Clendaniel said the standards allow her to look for people who are truly interested in a career in early education, not just a job working with children. One of the biggest hurdles she recently conquered was working paid planning time into her teachers’ day through “planning and budget twisting” thanks to the advice of a Stars’ technical assistant.
The Learning Center in Milford is currently a Level Three in the Stars program, but “should be a four,” Clendaniel said. She hopes one day it reaches the highest rating, five, but concedes she is “the tortoise, not the hare. Slow and steady.”
This early education component participation is not mandatory for children, so Dichter also sees the importance in educating parents in what is available and the difference it will make in children’s K-12 experience.
“When we talk to parents, [they] want the very best for their children. Parents want their children to be successful in kindergarten and that means when they make that choice to enroll their child in an early childhood program they have an expectation that the program will do well by their child,” Dichter said. “We want to make sure that as they are making those choices they have the very best information and that they have good selection in their local communities.”
To that end, the Office of Early Learning is developing a website for parents to find out which area early childhood centers are participating in Stars and the centers’ ratings. The site will also give more detailed information about the program itself and how the ratings are developed. The current Stars site is geared more toward the centers themselves.
The third focus is to make a more seamless connection from birth to 5 programs to K-12 schools.
Dan Curry, Lake Forest School District superintendent, said at the Vision 2015 Conference that he always wanted to provide a connection to the school district from birth, with the idea of showing up bedside in the maternity ward and introducing himself to new parents, which, he admitted “might seem a little creepy.”
But, he said, he believes it is important to let families know, as soon as possible that the school district is invested in their children and hope to support that child’s education.
Curry doesn’t hang around the local maternity wards, but his district has started the “Spartan Sprouts,” in honor of the district’s high school mascot. When informed of an infant in the district, someone from Lake Forest visits the family at home to touch base with basket of goodies that includes books and a special “Spartan Sprouts” onesie for the newborn.
He said it’s also important, as that child grows to encourage both parents and child to tour the district schools and become familiar with what the future holds for every child’s education plan.
Dichter said communities across the state will have the chance to institute their own plans for bridging that gap between what was once considered “preschool” and kindergarten.
Through Early Learning Teams, 20 communities will build teams of parents, school district leaders, early childhood leaders and other community leaders.
“Together they’re going to take a close look at their home communities,” she said. “They’re going to look at where we are in terms of all the supports we need to really support children and families in our communities and make successful transitions into schools – and likewise that schools are welcoming and prepared to meet the needs of their young learners.”