A DCHS CONNECT FEATURE

June 9, 2022- The annual national Teacher Appreciation Week offers an opportunity to give all educators, including those who teach young children, some well-deserved recognition.

A career in early childhood education offers many opportunities for advancement in the field as well as the immense job satisfaction that comes from influencing the lives of young children and getting them off to a strong start.

However, recent years have been extremely challenging for the early childhood workforce. The need for an equitable and accessible early care and education system in Alexandria was paramount.

As the collective voice and resource for early childhood care and education in Alexandra, Kids’ First Years (KFY) and its partner organizations are committed to implementing a systems-building approach to build and support the early childhood workforce and also to elevate the quality of the educators responsible for teaching the City’s littlest learners.

FOCUS ON QUALITY & CONSISTENCY

Since quality early learning is a key driver for school readiness, KFY established a Quality Committee chaired by Glenn Hopkins, CEO of Hopkins House, a community-based learning center. This committee includes representatives from George Mason University, Northern Virginia Community College and early childhood education providers.

The Quality Committee aims to raise the bar on the skills and qualifications of early childhood educators, ensure they have access to the tools they need for quality improvement, and develop an education credential continuum to sustain the workforce.

“We believe that education is a continuum that starts at birth,” said Hopkins. He noted that children in high quality early learning programs are better prepared to succeed in kindergarten and elementary school.

Hopkins and the Quality Committee believe that creating a hub of quality will favorably impact the salaries that these educators can command. “We see a huge difference in the social development of children who have teachers with a comprehensive understanding of child development and these educators should be compensated for their skills,” Hopkins said.

Derek Vanover, a Hopkins House team member who serves on the KFY Quality Committee, added that a recent study of childcare providers in Northern Virginia revealed their concerns about the lack of quality in the early childhood education workforce. “We have brought together many experts to address this issue,” he said. “Improving the quality of adult/child interactions in childcare settings is a driving force of what we do.”

Another KFY collaborative initiative that represents a collective effort to promote alignment among the area’s early childhood educators is the Professional Learning Council, chaired by Jane Richardson, Coordinator of Citywide Early Childhood Programs for Alexandria City Public Schools.

The Council designed a robust three-year plan to strengthen the quality of educator/child interactions. This year, directors of publicly funded early childhood programs have read and discussed a book about powerful interactions and then trained their teachers. Next year, Year 2, will feature a deeper dive into interactions and a crosswalk with the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) observation tool.

Additionally, the Council adopted the use of a common, shared curriculum – The Creative Curriculum. This citywide coordination ensures that young children at any publicly funded program can change schools/centers and stay on track with the same curriculum.” 

“In previous years, schools and childcare centers had a more siloed approach to professional development with every entity writing and implementing their own teaching materials,” stated Richardson. “We now have continuity and consistency in our early childhood education programs that will benefit the young children of Alexandria.”

BUILDING THE EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION WORKFORCE

Workforce development for prospective early childhood educators is essential, and help is available.

Northern Virginia Community College offers the G3 Scholarship so Virginians with low or moderate income can pursue jobs in high-demand fields, one of which is early childhood education. More details can be found at nvcc.edu/g3. 

The City of Alexandria took some very proactive measures to help local childcare providers who were struggling to find qualified staff when centers started reopening.

“Early childhood education was being viewed as a high-risk profession because teachers were working in close contact with other individuals in the midst of a worldwide pandemic,” said Juliette Milushev, Team Leader for several children’s services programs with the City’s Department of Community and Human Services.

Milushev partnered with the Center for Economic Opportunity, KFY and other Alexandria stakeholders to form the Early Childhood Education Workforce Development Collaborative, which created a video to promote a career in this field (https://youtu.be/kFjlgzlhy_0).

Also, they planned Job Fairs to connect applicants to Alexandria child care providers who were hiring and the open positions started to fill.

“We wanted to expand opportunities for the early childhood education workforce and create not just jobs but career pathways,” said Milushev.

Michelle Smith Howard, Executive Director of KFY, concluded: “By coordinating the citywide systems that support early childhood educators, we can use our resources collectively, including funding, which allows our programs to not only be sustained, but also have a much greater impact.”

• Contributor Sarah Hunt, Kids’ First Years with local background and comments by Juliette Milushev, DCHS Early Childhood.  Full story published in the Zebra