January 18th marks our one year anniversary and we are throwing a party!

In Plano, everyone is invited to attend our festivities from 3p to 5pm.  All children who attend will be able to participate in a variety of fun class activities and enjoy a few birthday treats too.

In Cary, we are having dinosaur activities (that is what we are currently studying), special performances  by students and a special birthday cake.

We hope to see you there and feel free to bring some friends with you!

Update 1-19-20  Read about the event HERE.

In November, the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) released a report calling for more emphasis on clinical pre-service experience for the nation’s K-12 teachers, such as is provided in urban teacher residency programs, like Boston’s.

The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) followed suit, releasing a statement touting its revised standards for early childhood teacher preparation. The revised standards call for field practice in at least two of three age ranges—zero-to-3, 3-to-5, and 5-to-8—and in at least two of three settings (school-sponsored pre-K, head start and child care).

What does training look like now for early educators, and how do administrators in the early ed world make human capital decisions? For an on-the-ground perspective, Early Years turned to Elanna Yalow, executive vice president of Knowledge Universe, a for-profit education company that operates more than 2,000 early-learning programs (both preschool and day care) in 39 states. Here’s an edited version of our conversation.

Q. What are the biggest challenges we face in training early educators?

A. There’s more consistency in expectations in K-12. The range of expectations for early childhood educators is even wider—from somebody with a high school diploma to somebody with a bachelor’s degree.

Q. What’s your take on the call to increase clinical experience for pre-service early educators?

A. Practical experience is absolutely critical [but] I would be concerned about trading off time to learn about developmental stages. In K-12, textbooks help teachers deliver content, but if you look at the broad early-childhood industry that’s not the case. Teachers are completely developing their own lesson plans. [Many] are happy to pull stuff from a variety of sources. If they don’t have the background in appropriate expectations for each age level, they don’t have the framework or context to plan well.

Q. What do you look for when hiring early educators?

A. At Knowledge Universe, when we think about high-quality teachers we put a tremendous focus on both education and experience. Teachers go through at least two rounds of interviews, to see how they think, and a classroom observation or other supervised classroom experience, to see how they interact with children. Whatever they join us with, that’s only the beginning. They need to have consistent, ongoing training.

Q. How do you provide that training?

A. Once they are brought on, we align them with a partner teacher who is responsible for helping them get acclimated to the center. We use classroom observations, consistent feedback and provide tools and resources. [All KU early learning centers provide teachers with two professional development days per year.]

Q. What other steps need to be taken to improve the quality of human capital in the early childhood field?

A. The industry doesn’t really have a gold standard or measure to say, “This is what you should look for in a teacher.” It is probably the single biggest challenge early childhood faces. We have submitted a proposal to IES (Institute for Education Sciences) to study better screening tools.

Here is an excerpt from their website:

“The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) is dedicated to improving the well-being of all young children, with particular focus on the quality of educational and developmental services for all children from birth through age 8. NAEYC is committed to becoming an increasingly high performing and inclusive organization.

Founded in 1926, NAEYC is the world’s largest organization working on behalf of young children with nearly 90,000 members, a national network of over 300 local, state, and regional Affiliates, and a growing global alliance of like-minded organizations.

Membership is open to all individuals who share a desire to serve and act on behalf of the needs and rights of all young children.

Public Policy and Advocacy

NAEYC and its members are a leading voice for early childhood education to Congress and other federal entities, governors and state legislatures, state and local agencies, and other policy makers throughout the country. At each level, we help policy makers and the public understand the benefits of high-quality programs and services and advocate for investments in high-quality systems of affordable early childhood education for all children birth through age 8. Our public policy and advocacy work is issue driven and nonpartisan. NAEYC’s A Call to Action for the 110th Congress makes recommendations for federal legislation to:

1. support a high-quality and well-compensated early childhood workforce,
2. create developmentally appropriate continuums of learning and development for children from birth through third grade,
3. promote collaboration of systems, and
4. expand access for children to highquality programs in all settings.

We look forward to our association and to participating in the accreditation process.  The end result will be the strengthening of our school.

The first is a tour led by two Pre-K students.

This next video is a compilation of photos at both schools.

Well, Monday, January 4th marks the most important arrival of all for The Grove School – our teachers. The best thing we do for our children in any school environment is to put a highly trained and child-centered teacher in the classroom with them each and every day. We have scoured applications from hundreds of teachers from around the country and have selected a wonderful cadre of highly trained professionals who not only embrace the early learning philosophy, but do so with a commitment to instill the ideals of “healthy body, healthy mind and healthy planet” throughout the school day.

The Grove School leadership, at all levels, recognizes and values the role that teachers play in the teaching and learning process. It is the teachers who, in concert with the parents, work the real magic. It is the teachers who will creatively guide, shape, inspire, motivate, stretch, challenge, correct, and praise our children as they begin this most important journey of learning.

I hold great anticipation of the many wonderful experiences the students of The Grove School will have in their expert hands.

Yes, the building is wonderful. Our furniture is beautiful and sustainable. Our technology is first class. However, more importantly, the same words describe the teachers of The Grove School. They are wonderful, beautiful and first class!

Check back soon as we will be posting videos, bios and photos of our staff. I invite you to stop by and meet all of us sometime real soon!

They need us to put them first. This can manifest itself in many forms. They need us to provide the basics of life: food, shelter and clothing. They need us to provide them a great education. They need us to provide them a safe, healthy and sustainable environment in which they can thrive.

However, as we completed the shopping and delivered the goodies to the wonderful retired former Marines on Friday, I was struck by this one word: love.

Children need love.

As I saw the proud retired Marines, along with the branch manager of the local bank participating as a drop off location for the Toys for Tots program, I was filled with a peaceful feeling that what we were doing this day was one of the many ways to express love. So many people freely giving of their time to benefit children.

One of the major goals of The Grove School is to help develop and be a part of our community. Even though it was only in a small way, I feel that we did just that, along with our Marine and banking friends.

I believe we did it for the right reason. We all love children.

One of the takeaways that I got from the article is that by observing many years of high school students and their need to be better readers and writers, and my experience working with adults, like myself, who need to be better readers and writers, I feel an even stronger emphasis to help our young ones get the best possible start on their literacy journey. Getting off to the right start makes all the difference!

Take a look and let me know what you think.

We think there are a number of reasons why tree planting is a good fit for The Grove School. It’s something that benefits the local community. It strongly connects to our promise to promote a healthy mind, body and planet. It encourages participation by children, teachers, family, and community members. And there are a number of ways it ties back to our curriculum.

As with any CSR initiative we undertake, tree planting is something that children can do (with adult help, of course!). It also nicely demonstrates cause-and-effect, both in the way a tree grows and in the way a project like this can make a positive effect in a neighborhood.

And of course, we’re THE GROVE SCHOOL—we love trees!