4 K Advisory Council Minutes

1/26/10

9:00-11:00am

4C on Odana Court

Sue Abplanalp welcomed everyone and began with an inclusion activity. The group read a piece from Capra, F. (2002). The Hidden Connections: Integrating the Biological, Cognitive, and Social dimensions of Life into a Science of Sustainability. New York: Doubleday. The purpose was to get everyone involved in the meeting and to reflect upon the complexity of change. The group reflected upon the need to have this effort be collaborative and have broad community participation.

Sue then reviewed the agenda:

  1. Inclusion Activity
  2. Review Agenda
  3. Review Minutes
  4. Review of Membership
  5. Review Flyer
  6. Review of 4K Survey
  7. Establish Forum Agenda
  8. Other?

We added a professional development update to the agenda.

The council then reviewed the minutes from last time.

Membership on the Advisory Council was discussed. Joanna was added to the list of members. A mental health representative was added to the list, and Marcia Huemoeller has two parent representatives for the committee.

Discussed next was the flyer that was sent to providers—accredited, non-accredited, centers and family providers in all of DaneCounty. Committee members did not get the flyer yet. 4C has gotten some calls from providers and there is an increased interest of getting accredited.

Sheila Briggs reviewed the survey. It was shared that we had a very small n on both the web based survey and the hard copy. Because of this, we are cautious in how we will use the results. It was decided to turn the results over to the parent outreach committee to let them look at it and decide what to do with it. It may be used to create a future survey.

Sue reminded the group that sub committees that are meeting need to be posted at least 24 hours in advance, as a legal requirement through the Board of Education. Sue would like one week’s notice so that we have plenty of time to notice meetings as a Monday or Tuesday meeting might be difficult.

Sue announced that the 4K website has been updated.

We then got an update on professional development. On Feb. 12, 8:30-4:00, Dr. Beth Grau is doing a one-day class at the PyleCenter to provide an overview of CLASS. There are 85 slots available and the cost is covered. Lunch is provided. Registration forms are available from Lynn Edelfson. The target audience is directors and teachers. CLASS is a software program that can help with quality classroom assessment—teacher/student interactions. CLASS will be adopted to help with professional development needs. It can also be used for accountability purposes.

Jennie Allen and Dr. Grau have also been working on a professional development plan for getting 4K up and running. They are planning a series of courses for those who wish to be a 4K teacher. Because MMSD hasn’t had 4K, we haven’t had any PD for potential teachers (except for Launching into Literacy and Math). As a district, we will have kindergarten teachers that may be interested in being a 4K teacher, so we want to be proactive to open PD for those who may look to apply for a 4K teaching position. Partnering with the UW, we will be offering 4 courses (12 credits) to build teacher capacity. It will also have one component that has them being a K-ready (summer school) teacher as a practicum. Rather than having this as multiple unrelated courses, we really tried to think of what experiences we wanted people to have, and what side benefits we wanted them to have. So, they will be UW courses, and it could build to something—not a master’s degree, but a certificate in early childhood. This is targeting people that are already certified in early childhood. We’re going to build the program around reciprocal funds of knowledge. We are writing a grant through NSF, including a component of developmentally appropriate math practices. We are looking at 25 people a year in a cohort. If it started in the summer of 2011, people would be placed in K-Ready, or it could be supervised practicum over a 3 semester period. The target is not to be 4K literacy and math—it’s a more holistic approach to high quality programming. The grant would pay for a portion of the tuition. It could be for MMSD teachers as well as teachers in the community. The timing would be planned in a way that full time teachers could participate. We are hoping to bring in some principals, directors and IRTs to increase their knowledge as well. So the bottom line is that this is not a licensure program—it is for teachers that are already licensed to teach kindergarten. This is meant to help them increase their knowledge and skills.

A comment was made that it is really great to see the leadership recognizing that just because teachers have a 4-year degree, that doesn’t mean that they are ready to teach 4K. It’s great to see that they recognize that we can learn something from the early childhood community.

It would be important to also address highly experienced teachers in the community that have let their license lapse, we want to support them in renewing that license. It would take 3-6 credits. This is already set up for this coming summer, for students to enroll at a reduced cost. Another group would be those that are not certified kg (for example, special ed teachers that are not certified regular ed kg), and a final group would be those that don’t have any certification at all. We need to include those in our planning. It was recommended that we bring information about these options to the forums to give to the providers. If you have any recommendations about the timing or numbers, get them to Lynn, and she will work with Dr. Mimi Bloch to get this together prior to the forum. It will also be important to talk with the group attending the CLASS workshop.

We then moved on to planning the 4K Forum for providers. Feb. 10 and 11th from 6:30-8:00. 10th at Monona Grove Nursery. And the 11th is at the Dane County Parent Council. Sue will put these on public notice.

We looked at the BOE packet to see what of that we need to provide for the Forum. Things we need to provide include the CBA information, a Q& A document, and the budget document, the curriculum and assessment, how can people use the reimbursement, and do parents get a cut in tuition, hours/minutes, transportation, enrollment, choosing, food program, how will centers be chosen, timeline for RFP/registration, what is MMSD accreditation deadline, if centers do not participate in year 1, can they join the following year, how will enrollment happen/choice, etc., transportation, Wisconsin Shares, (even for not participating centers), religious programs, contract, model 2 questions, parent involvement.

We will give the entire board packet, we will do a thorough Q& A document as well. We’ll get notecards, and ask people to write questions down. At end if their questions aren’t answered, we’ll address them. Get emails from participants, so that if we run out of time, we will have a way of responding after.

Agenda for the forum:

  1. Welcome-History
  2. PD Opportunities
  3. Each group presents one of 4 subgroups (not funding) Logistics, curriculum, Parent Involvement, Public Information
  4. Can we record meeting? Public information

Next steps—Sue will have the Q&A prepared and will categorize by subgroup. Subgroups will have to meet before then to plan their presentation. 10 minutes for history, 20 minutes for logistics, 10 for the others, and 30 minutes for Q&A. Groups need to send Sue any other documents. 4C will put out the invitation again to providers. We also need to get the word out as much as possible—we will post on our website. Sue will send all of this information back to the group via email. We decided to wait until the fall to hold parent forums. However, the outreach people will continue to work. We will discuss this at the next council meeting.

Next meeting date will be: February 22, 9:00-11:00 at 4C

The next meeting will include:

  1. Review forum to debrief
  2. Committee updates (standing agenda item)
  3. PD updates
  4. Community outreach/PR
  5. Create timeline
  6. Set future dates (Advisory meetings and parent forums)

Meeting adjourned at 11:00 am.