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.
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
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.
