NECTAC includes this topic in our annual survey of state preschool special education coordinators, the Section 619 Profile. The most recent data about states' early childhood special education certification is at nectac.org/~pdfs/pubs/q1-42.pdf#page=21. You may also be interested in the document below, Unified Early Childhood and Early Childhood Special Education Teacher Certification: State Approaches (2006).
Facilitators
NECTAC
NPDCI
OSEP Preschool LRE
Community of Practice
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| "What challenges do you and your organization face in establishing collaborative early childhood professional development that supports high quality inclusion?" |  |
Comments
Betsy and Pam,
Your conversation reminds me of some systems change work that Nebraska did a few years ago to increase the number of qualified staff that serve children with disabilities in community based programs. Nebraska did intensive training on coaching and consultation in early childhood programs across the state. The 619 and State EC State Administrators presented the initiative on a conference call hosted by NECTAC and the power point can be found at the link below. Have others done similar initiatives?
related link: http://www.nectac.org/~Calls/2004/preschoollre/nebraska.asp
A question that was asked during the webinar is how we are defining blended licensure. What we mean when we refer to blended licensure is licensure for early childhood regular and special education teachers that combines content from both disciplines and leads to a single, unified, license. Blended licensure is usually based on competencies from both general and special education and supported through interdisciplinary teacher education programs.
I would be interested in hearing about the challenges faced in developing blended licensure from people who have been involved in this process in their states or districts.
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Betsy, You raise many interesting points, one being how can the quest for quality standards for early care and education programs(via efforts such as NAEYC accreditation and Quality Rating and Improvement Systems being developed by many states) include benchmarks and indicators that support inclusion. Your idea about accreditation standards jointly established by NAEYC and DEC is intriguing. I hope we can hear from anyone who has ideas or reactions to this idea, especially individuals at DEC or NAEYC. As an FYI, the NAEYC position statement on curriculum, assessment and program evaluation and DEC companion piece to it are available online at http://www.naeyc.org/about/positions/cape.asp
A product that NPDCI is developing related to Betsy's question is a Concept Paper entitled, "Why Program Quality Matters for Early Childhood Inclusion: Recommendations for Professional Development" Look for it in the next few weeks at www.fpg.unc.edu/~npdci
related link: http://www.naeyc.org/about/positions/cape.asp
We are in our seventh year in a collaborative partnership between ECSE, Head Start, and our city child care program. Each year has presented a new set of challenges, however this year's is NAEYC Accreditation. The child care program is to be commended for their commitment to improving the quality of programming by engaging in the accreditation process. Interestingly, preparing for it (the "What) has consumed most of our collaborative professional development time, as well as resources (the "How").
In my role as ecse I have supported classroom teachers this year as they prepare for accreditation. Through this process It has come to my attention that some of the accreditation strands do not reflect the qualities of universal design, and could be further articulated to do so. Janice's comment about combining AEYC and DEC student groups got me thinking about the possibility of a set of accreditation standards jointly established by NAEYC and DEC.
The professional development concept paper supports the need for a common set of competencies and standards across all sectors of the early childhood community. We have a shared set of practice guidelines (DEC Recommended Practices and DAP Guidelines), and a shared set of Curriculum, Assessment and Program Evaluation guidelines, however to my knowledge, we do not yet have a shared set of accreditation standards. Are people aware of any movement in this direction?
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As a consultant in a large school district, I find the most difficult thing is building relationships. It takes a full year minimun to build a relationship with a teacher/director in the inclusive classroom and then boom-you get moved to another school the following year. And start all over
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Thanks Janice for sharing these great strategies for addressing the challlenge of how to create a community of learners representing both early childhood and early childhood special ed. Do others have ideas on this?
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Janice - This is a great illustration of a way to use the framework to think about what is currently happening and to come up with a more intentional and explicit focus on blended perspectives. You've also captured an example of how the professional development conceptual framework could be applied to a more local context.
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After the Webinar, I shared with my colleagues the comment that was made about incoming teachers wanting to have their own classrooms, rather than help develop inclusive settings. We looked at the Who, What, How model proposed in the webinar paper. We liked the part about communities of teachers having sustained learning. We brainstormed about what we might do to try to increase possibilities for sustaining the communities of learners. We currently have a student branch of the Association for the Education of Young Children, but not a group for DEC. We decided that a quick and simple thing that we can do is to combine AEYC and DEC for our student group, ensuring that they see the value of communities of learners, while also learning how AEYC and DEC goals and values are comparable. The long range goal is that they will value and know how to participate in professional groups. Next week, we will bring the executive board of our student group to the table to discuss the possibility of embracing both AEYC and DEC in one group.
We also hope to use the Who, What, How model to guide discussion at our next Idaho Early Childhood Personnel Preparation Consortium meeting. We are facing conflicting policies that impact the intent of our teacher certification for early childhood/early childhood special education and inclusion of children with special needs with children who are typically developing. We hope the Who, What, How format can help us articulate solutions.
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Hi Lorene,
There are many early intervention and Head Start collaborations that have been created across our state.
One of the ways this was arranged is that one ECSE classroom and one Head Start classroom were mixed to create two inclusive Head Start Classrooms. The Head Start classrooms were staffed with a teacher and an assistant teacher. Early Intervention provided another assistant to each classroom and an early intervention teacher who worked with both classrooms in a Collaborative Model. Sometimes the set up was more consultative and other times it was more co-teaching.
Another model was to close two other segregated EI classrooms and collaborate with 7 Head Start Classrooms. The special educator in this instance was in a consultative role in this building.
Other arrangements have been for co-teaching models where a PreK teacher paid through a school district and an Early Intervention teacher paid through EI worked together. The assistant teacher in each classroom was an employee of the EI system.
There are many different ways that early intervention programs have partnered with early childhood/Head Start/PreK to create inclusive early learning environments that support all children through creative and blended funding.
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One of the challenges faced in our system is also a time factor. The time and availability of the key administrators at a state level to conceptualize and create a professional development system to support inclusion is only one of the priorities. It is actually only a piece of the priority as we look to create a system of high quality early learning environments for ALL young children. Although we have successfully created cross-sector groups to work on different priorities, the availability of administrators for long planning meetings is a challenge. The work load and expectations for accountability play huge roles at the administration level as they do at the practitioner level.
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I think the biggest challenges are class size and getting classroom staff, already over taxed, to be able to know what children are working on and assist with those goals. I am lucky to be able to work with a preschool in our community that supports the school district's inclusion goals, but once they are there and I am working with them, it is almost like I am on my own with them in the class.
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One of our biggest challenges is class size. We are trying to combine our early intervention class with a neighboring Head Start classroom with a total of 29 children with the combined classes. Any ideas folks may have for funding that results in a reduced class size would be a greatly appreciated.
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Our biggest challenge is finding the time to implement best practice for each individual child. Making communication books and boards, working on transitioning, trying to meet as a comprehensive team. Time is our biggest challenge.
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The recent training I offered had a good turnout. I think it helped that providers were up against an annual deadline imposed by the state for obtaining a required number of training hours. It helped that the training was held in the evening and not on a Saturday. And, it helped that I drove the 2 hours to meet with them at their local CYFD office rather than ask them to come to our center.
Having said that, I felt challenged to empower the group of providers who attended. They were largely registered and licensed home providers,living and working in a relatively isolated region of the state, with limited outside professional support. When asked, "How many of you see yourselves as professionals?" everyone raised their hand. Yet it quickly became obvious that walking the talk is challenging. They feel caught between a community which tends to view them as babysitters and expectations put upon them by the state to do more.
It could be the perfect opportunity to support them in elevating their professional self esteem by educating their community.
My plan (my challenge) is to prod, goad, entice, guide, and support, them away from behaviors that surrender to helplessness and toward empowerment.
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There's no dedicated budget line for professional development. Without leadership putting up the dollars, training doesn't happen.
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Remedial Reading and Writing issues surface frequently as we provide professional development opportunities to practitioners. What are some available resources that instructors can tap into or help practitioners to connect to?
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I agree with Kathy Coombs that motivating child care staff to attend professional development in the evening or on weekends is a challenge. It seems to me that the higher status professions are more likely to provide professional development on "company time." Low status professions like child care demand training in addition to the work day, on personal time. It's difficult for schools to release teaching staff, because adequate staff ratios must be maintained. In my former life as director of a child care center, I offered my staff 4 hours of administrative leave following any 8 hour weekend training attended. The staff seemed to appreciate the gesture!
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As a special education teacher of children with mild to moderate disabilities, I use both pull out and push in. This means that I have to coordinate schedules with four different teachers in two grades. Our biggest challenge is supporting our children with disabilities in their general education classroom - our small staff that has to be spread out amongst so many classes.
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One of the greatest challenges I face, as a child care inclusion specialist, is finding ways to engage providers in on-going training opportunities. It is difficult to motivate people who are teaching children all day to then come to our center for evening or weekend workshops. Another challenge is addressing the variety of skill levels of the people who do attend. There are those who are just begining to consider serving children with special needs and those who are starting to understand the philisophical basis of inclusion.
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We are excited to announce that we have over 70 people registered for next month's webinar. To broaden the conversation, we need your participation prior to the event.
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
Post your challenges here in a short paragraph. Share your story.
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