Linking early learning and the early grades to assure that

E D U C AT I O NSupporting Partnerships to Assure Ready Kids

Linking early learning and the early grades to assure that children are ready for school and schools are ready for children – a SPARK Legacy

Of the four million American children who start school each year, as many as one-third are unprepared to learn. Many never catch up. The reasons are complex, but clearly the multitude of systems that should be supporting young children too often fail in that mission — from family to schools to government. SPARK (Supporting Partnerships to Assure Ready Kids) seeks permanent improvement in the systems that affect children’s learning.

The SPARK initiative of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation was conceived as an effort whose roots necessarily came from the communities where families and children live. Designed to unite communities so that all children could be successful both before and after they enter school. SPARK fosters partnerships of communities, schools, businesses, state agencies and families to work together effectively for the early learning of children. With the initiative serving as a catalyst or “spark,” the goal is to ensure that vulnerable children are ready for school and that schools are ready for all children.

The initiative includes grantees in eight locations: District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Ohio.

SPARK Guiding Principles:

Community Engagement: Strong partnerships among families, providers, community organizations and ready schools ensure that all children can learn and succeed in school.

Access to Quality: Quality is a critical element of a child’s early learning, from birth through the early years of school.

School Readiness: Parents and families at home and working with early-care providers are critical to ensuring that children are prepared for and succeed in school.

Ready Schools: School leaders and teachers, working with the community’s support, can create coordinated systems and smooth transitions between early-learning settings and schools.

SPARK: Overview and guiding principles

WORKING PAPER -- NOT FOR PUBLICATION

AUG2008

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Transition and Alignment in SPARK – Linking Early Learning and the Early Grades

Working with children at age 3 and following them through their early years of school, SPARK has provided a continuous set of services and supports across early care, eduation and the early grades. In this way, the model has engaged elementary teachers, principals, superintendents, as well as pre-k providers, and impacted the cultures of both schools and early care and education.

While each demonstration reflects a unique social, political, and cultural context, efforts are linked through the overarching initiative goal and a series of guiding principles. The result: The emergence of a common set of key components for linking early learning and the early grades. By supporting strong transitions, authentically engaging families, and aligning teaching and learning across systems, these proven approaches stand to fill a gap in education policy and practice. To that end, what SPARK sites have done to smooth transitions and link teaching and learning across early care and education and the early grades of school at the community level, may impact larger school reform issues and current policy discussions regarding what it will take to create a more holistic system of education across multiple levels.

Policymakers and educators continue to grapple with achievement gap issues in student performance at grade 3 and beyond. As they do, they are looking for ways to create a more “seamless” system of education that “assures young people’s education is connected from one stage to the next — reducing the chances students will be lost along the way or require remedial programs to acquire skills or knowledge they could have learned right from the start.” (Education Week, Quality Counts, 2007)

Many state and federal policies are focused on improving children’s readiness for school or on improving learning and teaching in the early grades. Until recently, very little attention has been given to how and why these two efforts, existing in separate education systems, might be joined. Very few policies and practices exist that address and support linkages across early learning and K-12. Many now feel that creating continuity of policy and practice and fostering authentic cooperation across disparate systems is what it will take to create a more unified and responsive education system. This presents a unique and important opportunity for SPARK to play a key role in the development of new policies by disseminating its lessons learned and tying best practices to emerging policy support.

What follows are key transition and alignment principles and strategies coming out of the SPARK initiative — along with eight unique profiles of the SPARK grantees highlighting their experiences as well as policy opportunities that emerged from their respective projects. Concluding this document is a description of the creation and implementation of The Governors’ Forums: Linking Ready Kids to Ready Schools.

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The SPARK Transition and Alignment StoryFollowing are the stories of the eight SPARK programs. Each story profiles key program components, goals and objectives; provides examples of the SPARK models “in action;” identifies keys to success and suggests policy opportunities each model presents.

Transition and Alignment Key principles1. Alignment of curriculum, expectations and pedagogy both horizontally and vertically

across the early learning years and early grades

2. Strong linkages and partnerships among community service/support agencies and providers of early care and education, schools, and community-at-large

3. Steadfast leadership at all systems and community levels (schools, school districts, community-based organizations, government agencies) in support of across system linkages

4. Informed and engaged parents/caregivers

5. Equitable access to quality care and education supports and services before and after school entry

6. Focused transition efforts across levels of learning — especially ECE and Kindergarten

Successful Transition and Alignment StrategiesSupporting parents through culturally ap-propriate and compe-tent activities such as summer camp, teacher home visits, child visits to school, school choice, fun parent night, Spring Kindergarten Sign-up

1. Sharing information about kindergarten registration process, about required health assessments and documents

2. Determining children’s needs and selecting a school that meets those needs

3. Completing kindergarten registration on time4. Establishing comfortable, confident, and knowledgeable relationships

with school staff5. Situation-specific technical assistance to parents who are new immigrants,

undocumented immigrant workers, refugees, not fluent in English, etc.

Community and gov-ernment commitment to young children through coordination of early care/educa-tion and Department of Education plus alloca-tion of resources

6. Sharing of child data among different agencies, organizations and systems7. Establishment of Transition Teams8. Co-training ECE and Kindergarten staff9. Co-development and/or making consistent of ECE and Kindergarten

standards and curriculum

Creation of platforms for policy actions

10. Raising awareness and building broad-based support for linking systems11. Bringing ECE and Kindergarten representatives not traditionally

accustomed to working together to the same table12. Forming formal and informal structures where policy makers and

stakeholders learn from and partner with one another about transition and alignment best practices

13. Embedding transition and alignment into broader policy processes

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NEw MExiCO

Joining Hands – A transition framework for linking families, communities and schools

New Mexico SPARK refined and expanded a locally developed transition model called Joining Hands designed to ensure children move smoothly and successfully into kindergarten and their early elementary years. The approach focuses on establishing effective transitions across early care and education and public schools, creating continuity in curriculum and instruction and offering coordinated community support services through partnerships between Head Start, pre-K, public schools and community agencies.

Joining Hands views transition as a process rather than a collection of activities. Based on eight key principles, Joining Hands provides an overarching framework that includes benchmarks and suggested strategies against which a team can measure its progress. Principles include: communication; equality among partners/joint decisionmakers; comprehensive and responsive services; families as partners; knowledge and skill development; culture and home language; and developmentally appropriate practice and assessment.

Joining Hands Teams are created in schools under the leadership and direction of the building principal. Each team is comprised of Head Start and pre-K teachers or administrators, early grade teachers, parents and other community-based providers of early care and education. Teams receive intensive training in child development, age appropriate curricula and teaching approaches. Training is designed to facilitate the creation of cohesive P-3 units made up of early learning and early grades teachers and others.

Following training, teams use the Joining Hands framework to set objectives and create and execute action plans. Teams are assisted by professional mentors who are experts in fostering school-parent-community teamwork. Joining Hands teams utilize guiding principles, indicators and suggested strategies as a roadmap for planning transition and alignment efforts and continuous improvement.

Joining Hands action plans address ways for the teams and the school to:

Ensure that the way children are taught throughout their early years and early grades •is aligned and based on best practices

Give teachers the knowledge and skills they need to provide high-quality, •developmentally and culturally-appropriate early childhood education

Give parents the knowledge and support they need to assist their children’s continual •learning success

Help all children build a foundation for social, emotional and academic achievement •and have smooth transitions from pre-K through elementary school.

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New Mexico Model in Action

Creating Joining Hands Teams in schools has led to a number of changes in building-level policies and practices that support effective transitions for children and increased engagement for parents. Due in part to the leadership of the principals in the schools, Joining Hands has become more embedded in the culture and norms of the school as evidenced by the following small but significant policy changes:

Substitute teachers provided for classroom teachers who participate as members of a •Joining Hands team

Stipends for parents to participate on Joining Hands planning teams •

Implementation and support for a parent liaison model in schools •

Resources to support parents’ ability to participate in school events •

Provision for the transfer of assessment data across preschool and kindergarten •programs.

To expand the Joining Hands models, New Mexico SPARK created a leadership team comprised of early learning and K-12 educators and administrators, business leaders, policymakers and representatives of key statewide education organizations. Known as the Leadership for Ready Schools Team (LRST), this group was charged with spearheading efforts to take Joining Hands to scale by establishing a viable presence for the model in state policy discussions. To that end, LRST members have assumed positions in a number of key state policy efforts including:

Serving on the Public Education Department statewide Parent Advisory Board•

Assuming key roles in the Early Childhood Action Network (ECAN) — an advisory and •advocacy body that provides policy input to the New Mexico Children’s Cabinet headed by the Lieutenant Governor.

LRST members have also held briefings with key legislators and were instrumental in the decision of the Public Education Department to call for the inclusion of family engagement strategies in school education plans.

Keys to success include:Multi-sector teams guide transition and •alignment planning and practices

School leadership supports and guides the •process

Cooperation and buy-in from early grades •teachers

Broad-based community leadership to support •scale up and policy development.

POLiCy OPPORTuNiTiES

Allocate funding to support •transition teams in schools

Create incentives (monetary •or non-monetary) to develop/ adopt innovative and successful models for smooth transition

Provide training, mentoring, •and other support for teachers to align practices and to engage families/ communities

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GEORGiA

Community Hubs and the School Transition Model

Georgia SPARK established a community “hub” model to help families and children access and navigate the multiplicity of available supports and services for school readiness and successful transition into school. Hubs serve as a single point of entry for families needing a variety of supports and services. Using the nationally recognized Parents as Teachers (PAT) program, learning advocates based in each hub work with individual families to teach parents about child development and about how to support their child’s learning at home. They also help families locate and enroll in early education programs and provide parent leadership training to sustain parents’ involvement in their children’s learning. Finally, they use an intensive school transition model to engage families in local schools prior to and after kindergarten entrance. The hubs also connect families to other needed local community health and social services.

In designing its program, Georgia SPARK listened to community leaders and exercised flexibility to work with a variety of populations in “non-traditional” settings. To that end, hubs were located in traditional settings such as child care centers and family support agencies and in non-traditional settings such as subsidized housing developments and mobile home parks. Georgia SPARK has identified engaging non-English speaking families, including recent immigrants and refugees, as a high priority for the work and established hubs in locations easily accessed by these populations.

In 2007, using existing Title I funds, Gwinnett County Public Schools adopted and funded the Georgia SPARK school transition model. This included hiring, with Title I funds, a county-wide Transition Project Manager; organizing school transition teams at each of the 21 Title I schools; developing annual transition plans that included a summer transition camp for 4-year-olds; and providing PAT training for parent-resource specialists in schools. These accomplishments are the result of targeted efforts to align SPARK strategies with Title I requirements.

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Georgia Model in Action

The community hubs and one district’s adoption of the SPARK transition model in its Title 1 schools, created significant change in communities, schools and the district.

At the community level, SPARK utilizes trained •bilingual parent educators/learning advocates who reach out to isolated Spanish-speaking children and families not enrolled in Head Start. They provide health and dental screenings for children, model appropriate ways for parents to support children’s learning and facilitate transition to kindergarten by linking parents to school events.

At the school level, an elementary school principal worked with the board of •directors of a local child-development and family resource center to create a memorandum of understanding committing the organizations to joint training, cross-site visits for teachers, and joint kindergarten registrations with parents and children entering the school.

At the district level, a joint training session for teachers and administrators, parents, •early learning program staff, family child care providers and other community-based organizations was the first of a series of events to establish ties across sectors to support children’s transition into schools.

Keys to success include:Providing access to resources where hard to reach families can access them•

Linking family support to school transition and parent engagement•

Establishing relationships with school districts •

Identifying existing resources that can be leveraged to support efforts •

Delivering services in the families’ first language.•


Create district-wide •transition and parent involvement guidelines

Work with districts to •leverage available funds

Support learning •advocates to link families and schools

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NORTh CAROLiNA

Ready Schools and Ready Schools Planning Teams

North Carolina SPARK focused on integrating efforts to embed “ready schools” into the state’s existing school readiness and early childhood infrastructure. Long a leader in school readiness initiatives, North Carolina used its proven multi-service, community-based technique to expand its reach by focusing on ready schools — schools that are ready for children.

Two early strategies were key to later ready schools achievements. Ready School Teams were created to connect various community segments of early learning, family support services and leadership with the schools. Teams received training and technical assistance to improve cooperation and deepen understanding of the educational needs of young children and the role of the schools in supporting and sustaining school readiness efforts. Communities and schools now had a cadre of early-learning advocates equipped to initiate and sustain community-based ready school efforts.

Next, building on earlier work, North Carolina SPARK engaged a number of education stakeholders to begin to more fully address transition as a key part of the “readiness equation.” These stakeholders developed assessment tools designed to measure a school’s readiness to receive new students and support learning in the early grades.

Principals and planning teams utilized the assessment tools to measure ready schools strengths and gaps and to develop ready school improvement plans. Through a grant process, selected schools and districts were able to access funds to carry out their improvement plans. Examples of identified areas needing improvement included: diversity, professional development and parent communication and engagement.

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The North Carolina Model in Action

In 2006, the North Carolina Ready Schools Task Force was convened by the state superintendent of education, the president of Smart Start North Carolina and the director of the Office of School Readiness. The purpose of the task force was to review the role of elementary schools in school readiness and to determine what steps were needed to help the state move forward in supporting ready schools. In 2007, the North Carolina State Board of Education took the following actions:

Ratified a statewide definition of a ready school •(based on SPARK work)

Endorsed the Power of K position paper as a staff •training and transition tool

Supported the use of ready schools assessment tools •and their inclusion in school improvement plans.

The ready schools improvement plan grants process has been expanded and incorporated into the North Carolina Ready Schools Initiative which grew out of the work of the task force. A series of community forums began in fall 2007 to introduce the ready schools definition to districts statewide. SPARK Ready Schools serve as models for other districts adopting its definition and practices.

Keys to success include:

Establishing strong linkages with state level efforts•

Building in mechanisms to sustain movement •

Creating a cadre of community level leaders•

Convening strong multi-sector teams at the school and community levels.•


Provide incentives/grants •to schools and districts to include transition and alignment activities in their school improvement plans

Create a statewide •definition of Ready Schools

Support cross-sector •communication and understanding by sponsoring community forums

Support creation of transition •teams and joint professional development opportunities

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MiSSiSSiPPi

Local Children’s Partnerships – linking schools and community to increase education quality and parent engagement

Mississippi SPARK — centered in the Delta, a region of the state that experiences high poverty, unemployment, low performing schools and high dropout rates — created a community engagement model focused on linking local early care and education with schools and the broader community. Overseen by a state-level Steering Committee, these Local Children’s Partnerships (LCPs), include government officials, business leaders, child care center directors/teachers, public school teachers, ministers, school administrators, parents and SPARK staff. Together they create plans for improving the quality of ECE in their communities. Over time, these groups have become more knowledgeable about early education, health and many other needs directly related to school success. Given the fact that there is no state-supported pre-K program and that quality and access to other early care and education services is limited in the state, the LCPs serve as an effective mechanism for overcoming challenges and gaps in programs and services and advocating for increased quality and access.

SPARK staff work with the LCP’s to create the link between community early care and education programs and the public schools. Schools are fully included in the planning process to improve the quality of community early care and education. In order to assure that schools are also ready for children, schools can access direct funding for transition and classroom quality improvement in the early grades. A ready school assessment, contract and checklist require participating school districts to meet certain requirements and develop a timeline of activities specifically focused on transition plans that ensure school districts work with other members of the ECE programs in their communities. The contract further outlines the development of classroom improvement plans based on evaluation findings. Funding to upgrade individual classroom and overall school environments is allocated based on these plans.

Mississippi SPARK is reaching out to state and regional leadership to mobilize resources to expand LCPs and the constituency of leaders who want to support a statewide ECE vision. A new partnership has been established with the Delta Council, an organization of business leaders to develop a cadre of its members who are linked to the LCP’s and support early childhood education and ready schools as an economic development strategy. In addition, a core group of 17 members of the Delta Council are participating in the Delta Early Learning Leadership Initiative (DELLI), staffed by SPARK. This initiative was created to educate participants on key early childhood issues and explain how they link to the state’s economy, as well as on the social importance of early education for later school success and adult productivity. The goal: To help business and community leaders expand their focus on education to include the early years, and to become advocates for early care and education that links children and families to community services and schools.


Encourage and support •public-private partnerships to support early learning initiatives

Provide quality •improvement funds to schools and early care and education programs

Support the creation of •school-community liaisons

Include transition into •school improvement plans

Support community-school •planning teams

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The Mississippi Model in Action

In one Delta school district, the ready schools assessment is being used as the basis for the implementation of a district-wide strategic planning process. Headed by a nationally-known school improvement expert, the process includes the creation of school-community teams and involves SPARK staff and LCP members.

Other schools, districts and communities are:

Aligning classroom instruction through joint professional development delivered •across levels

Establishing dedicated staff positions to facilitate transitions, referrals and follow-up •

Using multi-level program and student outcome data to align curricula, assessments and •report cards.

A growing cadre of business and non-traditional community leaders in the Mississippi Delta are involved and concerned about early education. Participants in the Delta Early Learning Leadership Initiative (DELLI) have been engaged in a series of experiences designed to expand their understanding of the link between economic development and early education.

In their first session, participants learned about brain development, its impact on later •learning, and the economic benefits of supporting learning in the early years. They also completed a survey that measured their understanding and awareness of ECE issues. (To their surprise, they knew far less than they thought they did.)

A second session featured visits to a number of child care centers on the Gulf Coast •that had been rebuilt after Hurricane Katrina, and a meeting with the director of Excel by 5, a community-based education project jointly funded by a large oil company and a local Mississippi foundation. From the director, they heard about an oil company that was up and running quickly after the hurricane, but was without returning workers because no child care was available. The company learned that without quality childcare, it had no workforce and therefore no production. When it invested in rebuilding child care and education centers, families returned to the area and business re-started.

Through these experiences, DELLI leaders have come to realize that provision of quality childcare not only impacts later learning and ultimately the creation of a qualified future workforce, but is also a key aspect of creating communities that will attract and support their current workforce. They have begun to consider ways to do the same things they had seen on the Gulf Coast. They have reframed ECE as a key business development strategy.

Keys to success include:Creating community based multi-sector teams that include public schools •

Providing funding and resources to support quality improvement efforts in schools •and programs

Framing early education as a workforce development issue •

Implementing guidelines and expectations for transitions and aligned programming.•

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FLORidA

Ready Schools Miami – a district-wide strategy to link early learning and the early grades

Florida SPARK brought together community-based ECE providers, elementary schools and others to establish working collaborations focused on improving teacher and program quality and ensuring successful transitions into kindergarten and the early grades. In order to accomplish their goals, the initiative took two initial steps: 1) created teams of diverse stakeholders all of whom were working toward the same end but “had never been at the same table before;” 2) focused on a single cohort of children and planned to follow them from age 3 through 2nd grade. It was the result of taking this long view of an intervention spanning many years that lead to simultaneous involvement in two levels of education — community-based child care centers and public schools — and to the creation of diverse stakeholder teams to support them.

The project selected child care centers serving 3-year-olds with an eye to the elementary schools for which they served as feeders. Focusing on current conditions in child care centers and projecting to conditions in the early grades of feeder schools exposed a lack of alignment in expectations between the two. The first step was to address issues of quality in the child care centers in order to bring them into line with the early grades of the schools their children would be attending. Efforts to increase program quality and school readiness in community child care centers included:

Embedding hands-on coaches in each center to support technical assistance and •director leadership training

Supporting acquisition of national accreditation •

Providing health and nutrition training through a partnership with the Miami School •of Medicine

Incorporating parent skill-building opportunities into child care centers through the •Parent Academy, a program of Miami-Dade County Public Schools.

Support for the increase in the number of accredited centers eventually led to success in creating a quality rating system that further aligns expectations across early education and the early grades and includes criteria for transitions.

From the beginning, SPARK was involved in the public schools, working with staff to inform them about SPARK and prepare them for the children when they entered kindergarten. In 2006, Miami-Dade School District Superintendent Dr. Rudy Crew established the Ready Schools Miami Initiative to build upon and expand SPARK Florida’s work district-wide.

Ready Schools Miami uses a comprehensive, systematic strategy that connects the school district, elementary schools, early learning centers, community-based organizations, higher education, the health community and families. When the district-wide scale-up is complete, all Miami-Dade elementary schools will have implemented a PK-3 model whose core elements include:

Ensuring that children have high quality early education experiences and smooth •transitions from early care to elementary school

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Aligning standards, curriculum, instruction and •assessment from pre-K through grade 3

Engaging and supporting families•

Building school-based learning communities to •improve and align teaching practice for student achievement.

Miami-Dade Model in Action

Once the district-wide scale-up began, professional development sessions were instrumental in assuring continuity across education levels. A partnership with the University of Florida led to the creation of learning communities in eight schools. Center staff and teachers participated together to establish consistent approaches to instruction and planning. Staff were also included in formal training to implement a nationally recognized transition model.

Other efforts to improve transition and align teaching and learning included:

Creating the University of Florida/College of Education job-embedded practice-based •Master of Arts degree program for teachers

Establishing teacher and principal fellowships — professional development and •coaching for creating cross system learning communities and principal leadership and management

Facilitating Health Connect — a multi-organization partnership to place teams of •health professionals in each school.

Data-sharing across the early learning and K-12 communities also helped create a more seamless continuum from pre-K to 3rd grade. While there has traditionally been a culture of cooperation for data-sharing across systems, no system other than Head Start has followed students once they enter public school. With the quality rating system, each child in participating centers was assigned a unique student identifier used to track individual progress through grade 3.

Keys to Success include:

Identifying common goals and creating strong teams and partnerships across sectors•

Finding champions who will build public support and lead expansion efforts•

Beginning with the end in mind — focus on where children are and where they will be. •


Support the creation of quality •rating systems

Support cross-system •professional development

Support the establishment •of community-based teams of educators and service providers

Support the assignment of •a unique student identifier beginning in pre-kindergarten

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OhiO

From Parent Partners to Ready Schools

Efforts in Ohio to impact positive outcomes represent a dual focus: child readiness addressed through parent engagement and training, and school readiness addressed by building the capacity of school leadership to understand and implement programs and practices that support transition and alignment across systems.

Beginning with a cohort of 3-year-olds, SPARK Ohio supported families and children outside and within a variety of care and education settings and tracked them as they transitioned into kindergarten and the early elementary grades. In the process, SPARK Ohio has produced a cadre of parents who have been engaged over many years and are well-informed about and actively involved in their children’s healthy development and educational experiences.

The SPARK Ohio model pairs children and families with parent partners who work together from the time the child enters the program at age 3 through kindergarten entry. The work begins with health and developmental assessments of children conducted by the parent and their parent partners. The results are shared with parents and in turn, parent partners provide ongoing guidance and examples of ways families can interact with children to support development and learning at home.

In addition to ongoing individualized home-based support, Parent Partners provide a series of school readiness and parent engagement opportunities including:

Early Learning Backpacks — standards-based activity backpacks based on the Ohio •Early Learning Standards

Lets Talk Program — parent-child training focused on verbal language and •foundational literacy skills

Get Ready for School — a summer program facilitating transition into school through •experiences for both parents and children.

Efforts to support transitions and ready schools include:

School Transition Teams — school teams include early care providers, school •principals, teachers, parents and SPARK parent partners

Ready Schools Self Assessment — completed by elementary principals and transition •teams, includes items focused on transition practices and the role of transition teams

Ready School Survey — statewide survey resulting in the development of a Ready •Schools/Transitions Resource Guide, developed by Ohio SPARK, the Ohio Department of Education, and the Ohio Association of Elementary School Administrators

Kindergarten Aides — SPARK parent partners acting as kindergarten aides in •classrooms at the beginning of each school year

Common Transition Form — developed through SPARK, ensures a core set of data •and information follows each child into kindergarten.

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Ohio Model in Action

A coordinated effort by a strong school-based transition team and an effective and trusted parent partner created new opportunities for one family. When the chance to attend the parent-child “Let’s Talk” pre-literacy program was offered to a new SPARK mother and her child, the mother refused. The parent partner who had established a relationship with this mother and understood the circumstances — knew the mother feared going out and rarely left her house at all. Undeterred, the parent partner contacted the transition coordinator at the school and together they arranged for someone from the school to pick up the mother and her child and transport them to the class. After three weeks of attending the sessions, the mother, with the help of the parent partner and the transition coordinator, had made some new acquaintances and began coming to sessions with a neighbor and her child who were also in the program. The mother continued to attend sessions with her child and became more engaged. By the time her child started kindergarten, she was no longer fearful of leaving her house, was driving and was engaging in a number of school-based parent activities including attending parent teacher meetings for her kindergartener and older sibling. Prior to this, school officials were unaware of the situation at home, and unable to provide needed support to the older child who was struggling academically and socially. Because of the coordination and communication among members of the school-community transition team, this family was able to access needed supports and increase their opportunities for school success and well-being.

In a survey of 500 elementary school principals designed to measure their understanding and implementation of “ready schools” policies and practices, nearly two thirds of the respondents indicated they were ready schools — based on the fact that parent involvement activities routinely took place in their buildings. When one SPARK school principal took the Ready Schools Assessment, he was shocked to find that his school’s scores for parent engagement were low. Realizing that ready schools and good parent engagement is more than a few parents attending a school sponsored event, the principal set out to make some changes.

His solution: Adapt the standards-based early learning backpacks to the K-3 standards and make them available to parents through a series of family nights and parent workshops. Not only did this principal support the development of new materials for teachers to use with parents, he also developed a new approach to engage them — changing parent meetings from federally mandated events to family focused events. Attendance at family nights rose from eight attendees to one hundred — nearly half the school population.

Keys to Success include:Assuring continuity of support for children and •families across early learning and the early grades

Creating partnerships at the state level•

Embedding parent engagement opportunities in •school settings before and after children enter school.


Support transition teams in •schools

Support home visitation •programs for children and families not engaged in other child care programs and services

Provide flexibility for school •leaders to design parent engagement strategies that meet the needs of the school population

Provide leadership training to •school principals

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hAwAiiKeiki Steps and P-3

Hawaii SPARK work is grounded in a focus on addressing and meeting the unique needs of the native Hawaiian learner. Research shows that Native Hawaiian families value the well-being of the entire extended family or ‘ohana over individual well-being. Rather than focus on personal individual achievement, Hawaii SPARK has based its work on the notion that children do better when taught in ways that are compatible with their learning styles and blend with the values of their family. Through a combination of direct services and supports for other efforts, Hawaii SPARK contributed to improving learning opportunities for native Hawaiian and all children across early education and the early grades.

Initially focusing child readiness efforts in two predominantly native Hawaiian communities, Hawaii SPARK followed a cohort of young children starting at age 3. Programs and activities were designed to provide a continuum of services reflecting “developmental” priorities of children and families from age 3 to grade 3. As children reached school age, efforts shifted to improving learning outcomes for students in the public schools.

Early school readiness work — known as Keiki Steps to Kindergarten — focused heavily on literacy development and included developmental assessments; parent information and training on parenting and school readiness; and support to early education programs to improve quality through accreditation and training. As children approached kindergarten, SPARK Hawaii refocused its efforts from ready kids to ready schools implementing and supporting a number of effective approaches to transitions, alignment and parent engagement. These include:

Using the Hawaii State School Readiness Assessment as part of transition to •kindergarten

Pairing kindergarten teachers and community providers to deliver Keiki Steps to •Kindergarten, a transition program for entering children and their parents

Establishing a teacher exchange program and joint professional development for •preschool and kindergarten teachers. (Training was designed to facilitate continuity of teaching practices across levels — an important goal in that currently less than 25 percent of kindergarten teachers have early childhood training or endorsements.)

SPARK is part of a cadre of public and private organizations working together to create a strong state early care and education agenda for children. As result of collaboration and cross agency efforts, a number of advancements for improving school readiness and creating more continuity and alignment across levels of education have been achieved statewide. These include the development and implementation of:

Preschool Content Standards which are aligned with the State K-12 standards•

Family and Community Guidelines — a companion to Preschool Standards that •“translates” standards into family friendly language

Guidelines for Cultural Competence in Schools by the Native Hawaiian Education •Council to promote culturally responsive learning environments in schools and aligned with state K-12 standards

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The P-3 Summits convened annually to •increase engagement of elementary principals and kindergarten teachers in learning and to demonstrate the value of aligning early childhood and K-12 systems.

Hawaii Model in Action

The challenge of supporting the most vulnerable children — typically those living in relative isolation in hard to reach families was overcome by establishing partnerships with an agency that families were most likely to access. Hawaii SPARK identified and trained health clinic staff to include the SPARK developmental assessment process to their initial intake procedures at the clinics. Three-year-olds are now routinely assessed and parents are given information on their child’s development.

In addition to addressing the school readiness needs of children and engaging parents more effectively as their child’s first teacher, the Keiki Steps program also serves as a workforce development resource. Parents have opportunities work in SPARK programs and to pursue additional training and degrees. Following in one mother’s story:

While my children were involved with Keiki Steps, I was able to attend ECE conferences and trainings as well as take classes from Honolulu Community College to further my interest, education and passion of ECE. I then became a Parent Educator in my community. I’ve been able to reach each individual family on different levels. It wasn’t until my experience out in the community made me realize what I really wanted to do on a professional level vs. a personal level for my children. Once my term as Parent Educator ended, I began taking college courses to further my education in ECE. Now I work as a Community Resource Specialist and I mentor families in a program called Ke Kahua O Maili, a Family-Child Interactive Literacy Program geared for Jr. K and K students. It offers trainings, community outreach resources and opportunities and special guest speakers. I had a wonderful opportunity to present this new program at the P-3 Summit in August 2007.

Keys to Success include:Creating partnerships with and supporting the work of other initiatives focused on •shared goals

Aligning work with state-level efforts•

Understanding the needs and values of the population served•

Offering programs through a range of service delivery mechanisms •

Providing cross-sector training to ECE and early grades teachers•

Planning events that bring ECE and K-3 teachers and administrators together.•


Establish readiness •assessments in kindergarten

Support joint professional •development for ECE/K-3 teachers

Create and align early •learning standards with K-12 standards

Support the creation of •policies that support P-3

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ThE diSTRiCT OF COLuMbiA

National accreditation as a strategy for Ready Schools, transition and alignmentWhen the DC SPARK initiative was launched, its leaders sought to leverage a strong District tradition of leadership and collaboration in the early childhood community. DC SPARK focused its ready schools efforts on a quality improvement strategy designed to create alignment across the pre-K and elementary school systems. SPARK is facilitating national accreditation in three pilot elementary schools to create high quality learning and teaching environments for children ages 3 to 5. The Head Start, pre-K and kindergarten classrooms in these three schools serve age groups that are eligible for accreditation by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). The SPARK DC pilot has taken a three-level approach to establishing accreditation as an alignment and quality improvement strategy — targeting teachers, principals and district leaders. SPARK is currently working to implement this approach district-wide.

Teachers DC SPARK is working with the multi-sector “early childhood teams” (Head Start, pre-K and kindergarten teachers) at each school to implement the 10 NAEYC Accreditation Standards. SPARK accreditation technical support staff assigned to each school guide the accreditation project and facilitate alignment of instructional practices across preschool and kindergarten classrooms. The SPARK staff meets weekly to review each standard and mentor the teachers through the accreditation process. In an effort to broaden teacher understanding of the importance of aligning quality early learning environments across levels of instruction and to measure growth in quality, pilot classrooms were also assessed using a nationally accepted environmental rating scale. Items on that tool were then aligned with the accreditation self study and used to guide accreditation efforts and plan quality improvements.

Principals Principals at the three pilot schools are participating in an intensive Principal Leadership Academy for Ready Schools. The goal is to create a leadership model for principals focused on transitions and aligning curriculum and instruction. Working directly with principals provides an opportunity to deepen institutional buy-in for a pre-K through 3rd grade continuum and to begin to effect policy change to support it.

District The District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) is a key stakeholder in the accreditation pilot. Policy changes in support of raising staff qualifications and improving facilities are only possible through assistance from the District. DC SPARK meets with district leaders to identify areas needing improvement to meet NAEYC quality standards and is currently working to involve district leaders in an effort to offer accreditation to all elementary schools. At the same time, SPARK is working with local policymakers to expand the accreditation pilot program across all sectors of the early education community including schools, charter schools, and community-based programs.

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DC Model in Action

DC SPARK staff routinely administer a developmental screening tool to SPARK children to provide parents and teachers with information about children’s development. NAEYC standards also state that all children ages birth-6 should receive developmental screenings within three months of program entry. After conducting an initial observation in the pilot schools, the team became aware that the only children receiving developmental screenings were those enrolled in Head Start classrooms. There were no developmental assessments administered on children in the pre-K and kindergarten classrooms. This was a consistent finding in all three pilot schools. As a result, trainings were held and included teachers from the three pilot schools and other SPARK community based partners. After the trainings were complete, 33 teachers became certified to administer screenings.

The two barriers to accreditation identified most often by teachers and principals were issues with facilities (old, poorly maintained buildings; lack of classroom space; hazardous outdoor play conditions on publicly accessible school playgrounds; etc), and staffing (lack of steady assistant teachers and high child-adult ratios). At the end of the school year, DC SPARK worked with principals submitting their proposed budgets to include allocations for facility maintenance, bathrooms in the early education classrooms, and additional staffing in classrooms. As a result, pilot sites have received the upgrades that increase classroom quality and bring sites closer to receiving accreditation.

Keys to Success include:

Involving administrators and practitioners at every level to assure implementation•

Taking time to inform and acquire buy-in of those most directly impacted before •beginning a new program or intervention

Starting small•

Being an impartial convener to bring diverse groups together around common •concerns.


Support pilot and small •demonstration projects for aligning systems

Support principal leadership •development

Align assessment and screening •across ECE and kindergarten

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SPARK lays the Groundwork for a Focus on Transition and Alignment — A Lever for Policy Action

SPARK has worked on the premise that readiness is a two-way street. Children need to get ready for school and schools also have a responsibility to become ready for all children. Now that transition and alignment strategies are maturing and policy opportunities have been identified, how can this focus on transition and alignment be used as a lever for policy action that will result in more holistic systems of education and improved outcomes for all children?

The Governors’ Forums: Linking Ready Kids to Ready Schools represents one model devel-oped through SPARK that is being used with five states — and intentionally includes states that were not SPARK demonstration sites. An important prerequisite is that the states host-ing forums already have efforts underway to support transitions and align policy and prac-tice, and can therefore use the forums as a means of moving to the next level of implementa-tion. The framework is flexible so that each forum reflects the unique policy context of the respective state, yet all are focused on the same goal: Convening stakeholders to examine ways to create and sustain smooth transitions, continuity, and aligned programs and prac-tices across early learning and the early grades.

All forums will hear from their Governor, other key state leaders, national experts, represen-tatives from philanthropy, and national organizations such as the Education Commission of the States. Each participating state will build their own strategy to advance policies across the early learning and early grades systems at both state and community levels and has:

•Identifiedaspecificmechanismthroughwhichtheworktobeaccomplishedwillbesustained

•Identifiedakeygroupofstakeholdersandhascraftedauniqueprocessforengagingthem

•Adoptedadifferentsetofactionstepstoreachtheirtransitionpolicygoal •Identifiedanoutcomethatcanbeaccomplishedwithintheexistingstatepolicyand

political environment.

Connecticut and PennsylvaniaConnecticut and Pennsylvania will shape their individual forums around issues of transition. Connecticut will utilize the meeting to first inform a broad-based constituency of the impor-tance and implications of assuring effective transitions across early learning and the early grades. It will then focus on mobilizing a small group of key stakeholders and policymakers to explore ways to integrate the existing transition model used in the state into a larger state-wide education policy agenda. Pennsylvania will introduce the Transition Policy Framework and will engage its community engagement teams and the K-12 community in a learning op-portunity to understand each component (aligned standards, teacher preparation and com-munity engagement and action), to provide feedback on the framework and to work together in teams to strategize how to implement the framework at the school/community level.

Colorado and ArizonaThe forums in Colorado and Arizona will look at each state’s efforts to create an aligned system of education P-16/20. Both states have established P-20 Councils with an infrastruc-ture of subcommittees charged with crafting a P-20 agenda for the state. In Colorado, a P-3 subcommittee is focused on creating a state structure that more closely aligns and links the

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early care and education system and K-12 education. The Colorado forum will provide an opportu-nity to bring state and local ECE and K-12 stakeholders together to learn about best practices for implementing a P-3 approach and identify strategies for implementa-tion at the state and local levels. In Arizona, rather than create a separate committee focused on “P” the state is seeking to integrate the efforts of its newly created early childhood initiative, First Things First, into existing subcommittees of the P-20 Council. The forum will be an opportunity for a small group from the P-20 Council, First Things First, and the K-12 com-munity to work together to develop a strategic plan and clearly articu-late the role of First Things First as the “P in P-20.”

OhioIn Ohio the forum will focus on the role of schools and school leader-ship. The forum will kick-off a year-long professional development partnership with the governor’s of-fice, the Ohio Association of Elemen-tary School Administrators (OAESA), the Ohio Department of Education and the Partnership for Continued Learning Council (P-16) to create a network of ready schools across the state. To that end, the governor’s office will award grants to elementary school principals to pilot a new Ready School Resource Guide developed by the Ohio Department of Education and SPARK Ohio. The forum will be an opportunity to build support by convening a broad base of stakeholders to hear about ready schools and their impact on learning. In addition, multi-sector teams from each of the pilot sites will come together for the first time at the forum. With technical assistance from a group of state and national content experts, teams will begin to develop their ready schools implementation plans.

Next StepsKey elements for successfully linking early learning and early grades that emerge from the state forums will be captured in a publication that can be used to inform what is shaping up to be an important state and federal policy focus. This publication will also be presented at a culminating national policy conference being planned for March 2009 in Washington, D.C.

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Washington D.C.Felicia DeHaneySPARK Project DirectorNational Black Child Development Institute, Inc.1313 L Street, NWSuite 110Washington, DC 20005-4110202.833.2220 phone/202.833.8222 [email protected] MississippiRhea Williams BishopSPARK MS Executive DirectorChildren’s Defense FundSouthern Regional OfficePO Box 11437Jackson, MS 39283601.321.1966 x107 phone/601.321.8736 [email protected]

FloridaAna SejeckChief Operating OfficerEarly Childhood Initiative, Inc.d/b/a Early Childhood Initiative Foundation3250 SW Third AvenueMiami, FL 33129305.646.7231 phone/305.646.7232 [email protected] North CarolinaGerry CobbDirector, Smart Start’s National Technical Assistance CenterNorth Carolina Partnership for Children, Inc.1100 Wake Forest RoadRaleigh, NC 27604919.821.7999 phone/919.821.8050 [email protected]

GeorgiaSharen HausmannVice President for Early LearningUnited Way of Metropolitan Atlanta, Inc.100 Edgewood Avenue, NESecond FloorAtlanta, GA 30303404.527.7288 phone/404.527.3560 [email protected] New MexicoNelsy DominguezProgram DirectorNew Mexico Community Foundation343 East Alameda StreetSanta Fe, NM 87501505.820.6860 phone/505.820.7860 [email protected]

HawaiiKanoelani NaoneChief Executive OfficerInstitute for Native Pacific Education and Culture (INPEACE)91-110 Hanua Street, #210Kapolei, HI 96707808.690.8097 phone/808.690.8099 [email protected] OhioJoni CloseSenior Program DirectorSisters of Charity Foundation of Canton400 Market Avenue N, Ste. 300Canton, OH 44702330.454.5800 phone/330.454.5909 [email protected]

Contacts

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CCMCKathy BonkExecutive DirectorCommunications Consortium Media Center401 Ninth Street, NWSuite 450Washington, DC 20004-2142202.326.8700 phone/202.682.2154 [email protected] IELKwesi RollinsProject DirectorInstitute for Educational Leadership4455 Connecticut Ave NWSuite 310Washington, DC 20008202.822.8405 x130 phone /202.872.4050 [email protected]

DCASteve GreeleyPresidentDevelopment Communications Associates, Inc.27 School StreetSuite 404Boston, MA 02108617.367.2774 phone/617.367.2887 [email protected]

WRMAPatrick CurtisVice PresidentWalter R. McDonald & Associates, Inc.12300 Twinbrook ParkwaySuite 310Rockville, MD 20852301.881.2590 x245 phone/301.881.0096 [email protected]

ECSMimi HowardEarly Learning Program DirectorEducation Commission of the States700 Broadway, Suite 1200Denver, CO 80203-3460303.299.3662 phone/303.296.8332 [email protected]

SPARK Resource Organization Contacts

Foundation Contacts

W.K. Kellogg FoundationTony Berkley, Deputy DirectorJody Glover, Assistant to the Deputy DirectorW.K. Kellogg FoundationOne Michigan Avenue EastBattle Creek, MI 49017269.969.2182 phone/269.969.2188 [email protected]@wkkf.org

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700 Broadway, Suite 810Denver, CO 80203-3442

303.299.3600303.296.8332 fax

[email protected]

Documents

Linking early learning and the early grades to assure that