Wednesday, March 13, 2013


Center directors and assistant directors

March 14th Directors Training

Coaching Your Staff

Rosemary Frazel, CEED Professional Development
Programs in Early Language and Literacy Development

Preregistration is required for this training.

        Email or call Nancy Johnson to register
     651-233-2260    njohnson@thinksmall.org

Two hours of in-service will be given
Training fee is $22
 

           The Early Childhood Directors Group meets on the second Thursday
from 10:00 am – noon at Think Small
2021 Hennepin Ave. E., Suite 250, Mpls, 55413
Monthly networking meetings are FREE.
Quarterly trainings - $22 fee, 2 hours in-service  
To register and pre-pay for trainings contact Nancy Johnson
njohnson@thinksmall.org or 651-233-2260
 

Parent Aware Information Sessions for Ramsey and Hennepin County Early Childhood Professionals!
Think Small is hosting FREE information sessions about the Parent Aware Quality Rating and Improvement System over the next three months.  Please call Amanda at 651-233-2264 to register.
Thursday, April 11
6:30 – 8:00 p.m.             
Ridgedale Library – Room 172
12601 Ridgedale Drive, Minnetonka
 
Tuesday, April 30          
6:30 – 8:00                     
Think Small East
10 Yorkton Court, Roseville
 
FREE Parent Aware Informational Webinar Just for Centers
Monday, March 25th at 1pm.
Email Rozalyn to sign up:

Early Childhood Directors Group

Notes from February 14th Networking Meeting

Facilitators:  Katie Johnson and Lindsey Boser from Como Early Learning Center, Minneapolis

Hot Licensing Issues

§  Licensing application is inconsistent from licensor to licensor

§  When licensors “fill in” for each other, there are glaring inconsistencies in what directors are told, causing lost time, effort, money and stress

§  Directors want to follow the rules but they need to know upfront the details for the licensing expectations they’re expected to implement. The Interpretive Guidelines (which were discontinued) were very helpful guidance for program directors. A page on the DHS licensing website with continuously updated FAQs that BOTH licensors and directors could check would be a step in the right direction.

Licensing Info on the DHS Website

§  Licensing rules for centers on the DHS website are hard to navigate. Need a better index that makes it easier to find things on the website.

§  Also, combining licensing information on the same page for child care centers, licensed family child care homes, and adult care facilities and having to use different designations to find the information you need is confusing and too complex.

§  It’s difficult to find out what changes were made to licensing rules by the legislature each session on the website.

Better Licensing Customer Service

§  It’s hard to get timely responses to licensing questions from your licensor who knows your program. Directors have called the licensor “on call” and were given different answers to questions than their own licensor gives them.

§  Is there a need for more licensors?

Changes to Child Care Assistance Daily Attendance Records

§  With the changes in CCAP rules for parent sign in for a child’s daily attendance, will a computer sign in qualify?

§  Are card swipes OK?

Licensing Suggestions from Directors

ü Look for more ways to communicate with child care directors on line. For example, send the yearly forms for re-licensing by email and attach fillable forms, similar to the way the Food Program works.

ü The letter that Licensing mails to centers should include the links to the complete information on the website so that directors don’t have to waste time trying to find it.

ü Better yet, send an email with the changes and embed the appropriate website links.  The full letter could be included as an attachment.

Suggestions for the MNCPD Website

ü The MNCPD (MN Center for Professional Development) website is NOT user friendly and not self explanatory. It’s ridiculously inefficient and hard to navigate. For example, there’s no button on the Home Page for Learning Record. If you want to check your Learning Record you have to choose Application to join the registry and then click through several more pages before you can get to your Learning Record.

ü Also, if you already have a Learning Record through a course you took, etc., this should pop up with the username when you try to register.

ü Non-credit ETL courses should be automatically added to attendees’ Learning Records.  

ü Why aren’t University and College professors’ courses automatically approved for MNCPD?

 

        Center Marketing Tips:  3 Red Flags   
From Debe Marofsky’s blog for  Affiliated Insurance, Plymouth, MN
Directors, when you do “first impression” walk throughs at your program, do any of the following fit your center? If so, it’s time for quick action:
     Smell -  (dirty diapers, etc.) 
     Sound  -  crying in infant or toddler rooms on a regular basis
     Staff  -  where are they?  Are they “in the mix with the children?”                                          Or in a corner talking and ignoring chaotic activity around them?

Child Development Research News


Puzzling Results –  reprinted from ExchangeEveryDay


Susan Levine, Ph.D., University of Chicago, offered these insights on spatial thinking in preschoolers on the LearnNow website:


"As studies mount that spatial thinking can actually be enhanced by specific activities at the pre-K level, what can we say about methods that actually work? Our latest published work honed in on the dynamics of puzzle play with children as they migrated from ages 2 to 4.5. We tracked 53 pairs of kids and their primary caregivers (mostly mothers), at multiple intervals for 90 minutes per visit, recording the encounters on video.

"One of the strongest take-home messages from our study is that richer engagement with puzzle play at 2 produced a stronger grasp of STEM-centric concepts at 4.5. Specifically, the children who showed the most engagement with puzzle play at 2 stayed on their trajectory throughout our study period. Moreover, the strong puzzlers, when tested at age 4.5, performed well above their age peers in one of the gold standard tests for spatial skills — the ability to mentally rotate an object.

"So what’s the link between puzzle and spatial? Mastering the placement of puzzle pieces inherently compels the mind — young or old — to recognize shapes and patterns in certain objects and then to imagine how they might fit into the larger whole. More often than not, the skilled players must rotate the piece in their minds to conceive of its place, and then must test their hypothesis by actually trying to place it where they believe it to belong."
 
President Obama’s Plan for Early Education for all Americans

“In states that make it a priority to educate our youngest children…studies show students grow up more likely to read and do math at grade level, graduate high school, hold a job, form more stable families of their own.  We know this works.  So let’s do what works and make sure none of our children start the race of life already behind.”  

President Barack Obama  -  State of the Union, February 12, 2013

 In his State of the Union address, President Obama called on Congress to expand access to high-quality preschool to every child in America.  As part of that effort, the President will propose a series of new investments that will establish a continuum of high-quality early learning for a child – beginning at birth and continuing to age 5.  By doing so, the President would invest critical resources where we know the return on our dollar is the highest: in our youngest children.


Examples from the widespread coverage on President Obama’s support of early ed and Governor Dayton’s early ed budget

 

Obamas universal preschool proposal: Game-changer or federal overreach?
(MinnPost © 02/14/2013)
Save

 


 
For up-to-date information on product safety for child care:

Visit OnSafety at www.cpsc.gov/onsafety
See our videos on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/uscpsc

We would love to hear from you. We also welcome ideas on how to serve you better. Please send your ideas, success stories or questions to nsn@cpsc.gov.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (www.cpsc.gov),
an independent federal regulatory agency, located at 4330 East, West Highway, Bethesda, MD 20814 


Toll-free hotline: (800) 638-2772.