Caught in the Act: Improving Head Start for School Readiness

What Is School Readiness and What Does It Mean for Head Start

School Readiness Defined:

A strong, clear, and comprehensive focus on healthy child development. This includes physical, cognitive, social and emotional development, all of which are essential to children getting ready for school.

It takes these three individuals to make school readiness work?

The Process Who is involved?

Child

Teacher

Parent

The purpose of the School Readiness Plan is to provide a better understanding of services to preschool children ages three and four in Houston County which meet the Federal Head Start Performance Standards and the Dothan City Schools Board of Education Administration Policies. The plan was developed as a strategy to help staff, parents, and community partners understand the system approach to service delivery.

The Purpose

The Planning

What four strategic steps are needed?

What do we want to accomplish?

Goals:

Four Strategic Steps :

Adopt and Aligned Goals

Create and Implement a Plan

Assess Child Progress

Examine Data

The 11 domains are condensed into 5 essential domains. The school readiness goal that the DCS/HS Head Start developed aligns with the Head Start Early Learning Framework, along with AELG, Pre-K standards, and Dothan City Schools Strategic Curriculum Framework

Our Adopted and Aligned Goals:

Create and Implement Plan

Dothan City Schools/ Houston County Head Start/PreschoolMrs. Jerryneta Evans, Project Director Ms. Y. Denise Vincent, Education Manager

Mrs. Barbara Ward, Lead Teacher Mrs. Faye Swain, Mentor Coach

School Readiness Action Plan

The plan was created in 2011

Assess Child’s Progress: Preschool Progress Profile5140 (Individual performance profile)5410 (Individual assessment performance)5150 (Individual Profile Multiple Assessment5210 (Group Profile)5220 ( Group Gains)5430 (Assessment Charts)

Individualization Plan Anecdotal Teacher/Parent Conferences LAP-D Achenbach End of the Year Checklist Progress Report Monitoring Speech Screener

PURPOSE QUESTIONSDATACOLLECTION METHODS

NEEDEDRESOURCES

LEADPERSON(s) TIMEFRAME

Purpose 1Why collect intended data?

*Professional Development*Review Curriculum

*Professional Consultants*Administrators

Evans, Vincent and Ward On-going

Purpose 2What kind of information can answer our questions?

CLASS observations, Informal evaluations, Reviewing PPP Data

*CLASS Training for Evaluators*CLASS training for Staff*Reviewers

Vincent, Ward, and SwainEvans

Completed

TBA

Purpose 3What data do we need?

*Preschool Progress Profile, *LELA, *Speech Screener, and *LAP-D

ChildPlus.NetEvans, Vincent, Bateman, & Lloyd

On-going

Purpose 4How will the information be stored?

*Child Plus.Net*Education Notebook

Internet Access

Notebooks

EvansManagement Team

Teachers

On-going

Purpose 5How the data will be used?

Self Assessment Process

ProfessionalDevelopmentSelf Assessment Goals

ManagementTeam On-going

Examine Data

Accomplishments:

Children develop age-appropriate social and emotional skills

Children develop age-appropriate physical skills

Children develop age-appropriate language and literacy skills

Children develop age-appropriate approaches to learning skills

Children develop age-appropriate cognition and general knowledge skills

Now that the process, purpose, plan, and strategic steps have been established, we should achieve the desired result!!!!

SUMMARY: