Illinois P-20 Council and Illinois Early Learning CouncilKindergarten Transition Advisory Committee

Tuesday, February 27, 2018, 1-3 PMIllinois Network of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies

1226 Towanda Place, Bloomington, IL 61701Dial-In: (701) 801-1220 Access code: 279-788-438

Minutes

Attendees: Tracy Occomy (COFI), Rebecca Vonderlack-Navarro (LPF), Jennifer Jones (IFT), Roger Eddy (IASB), Stephanie Bernoteit (IBHE), Kelly Post (District 65), Samantha Markham (representing Sen. Bertino-Tarrant, 49th District), Gloria Harris (COFI), Donna Emmons (IHSA), Ashley Long (B-3 Continuity Project), Kris Pennington (Unit 5 SD), Saret Beraki (IAFC), Mary Beth Corrigan (DCFS), Bryan Stokes (IAFC), Lynn Burgett (ISBE), Cynthia Tate (GOECD), Cristina Pacione-Zayas (Erikson), Bethany Patten (GOECD), Diane Rutledge (LUDA), Dan Harris (INCCRRA), Joyce Weiner (Ounce), Melissa Figueira (KTAC)

I. Welcome and Introductions Approval of January meeting minutes Review meeting schedule and structure

Cynthia Tate opened the meeting and called for attendance. Cristina Pacione-Zayas said that the minutes were sent out and requested a motion for approval. Diane Rutledge made the motion, Joyce Weiner seconded, and the motion passed unanimously.

Cynthia Tate said that this will be the committee’s second to last panel. The committee should be moving into thinking about how the findings from the panels will support construction of the report. Following the panel, there will be time to begin discussing how to construct the report.

II. Topic: Family and Community Engagement Context and panel introductions

i. Pam Horan-Bussey, Ounce of Prevention Fundii. Cathy Main, University of Illinois at Chicago College of Education

iii. Jackie McDougle, Parentiv. Ramona Richards, Chicago Children’s Museumv. Kristina Rogers, Illinois Action for Children

Panel discussion Committee discussion

Cynthia Tate said that today’s panel focus is family and community engagement. Cynthia introduced the panelists. Cynthia said that we’d like to start by asking each panelist to take three minutes to talk about your work and its relationship to the kindergarten transition. From your perspective, with working with families and with communities, what do you think the greatest challenges are in this transitional work?

Ramona Richards said our perspective at the Chicago Children’s Museum is slightly different. I’m looking at family engagement from two lenses. One lens is from the work we do at the museum on the floor and how we interact with families there, and the other lens is with my specific programming, Playing With Numbers. I’m piloting year three of this program with teachers in their third year who are focusing on family engagement specifically. I’d like to talk about the goals for that and the asset-based approach

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we’re using. At the museum, we don’t have explicit kindergarten readiness programming. Some museums might have countdown to kindergarten or summer programming, we don’t have that. We do have exhibit spaces and educational programs that address the universal pursuits of childhood, and some often address broader needs in child development. One thing we do intentional work on in the museum space in family engagement is providing information for parents and caregivers. We are aware that play and learning connect. We want to make learning more evident to caregivers so that when they see kids at play they are aware that learning is happening. For example, some kids are obsessed with the fire truck. So we have a sign about what to do if kids won’t leave the fire truck, about how imaginative play is important for learning. Another example is our changing stations: we have cues to give language for parents and caregivers to talk to their children. We’re not specifically looking at kindergarten readiness, but we have a lot of other supports. The other piece I want to mention is Playing With Numbers, part three. Our focus this year was family engagement. We adopted some goals from NAEYC for what we thought was in the purview of our programming—developing activities for home and community, thinking about reciprocal parent relationships, communication between teachers and families, and shared goal setting. What I’ve found to be powerful is conversations with educators on power and privilege and how we balance that and how culture is everything. We talk about families, specifically from immigrant populations, and how teachers can navigate the values of the school environment and the values of the families.

Pam Horan-Bussey said she works at the part of the Ounce that works with the network of Early Head Start and Head Start all over Chicago, the South Suburbs, and Lake County. Around five years ago, we did major changes to how we support families around transitions. We were getting feedback from parents after they transitioned. The process of applying is very complicated in Chicago, you don’t necessarily go to the school closest to your house. If you want to go there, you need to go through a complicated application process. They were frustrated with that process. They were overwhelmed by how to engage and navigate relationships with the different schools where their children ended up. We gathered more information from families, we had a good book “Managing Kindergarten Transitions,” we had them come to our pre-service, and we integrated transitions into these planned times that already happened with education staff together with family support staff. That happens at two home visits and two parent conferences. It starts at the beginning of the transition year. We said, this is just to let you know that this your child’s transition year and we’re here to support you in that. The follow-up would happen through the program year—we’d work with parents to navigate that process, both the application process but also preparing the children. One of the challenges that we found was that one of the requirements of our programs is to develop partnerships with local schools. Some would develop partnerships, but there’d be staff turnover in one program or at the school and it would fall apart. There weren’t structural supports available to maintain the partnership. That made it a challenge.

Kristina Rogers said that North Lawndale is in Chicago on the west side. Our work started seven years ago. We did a lot of parent engagement work and play-and-learn type work, and we’d have family, friend, and neighbor and home providers meet at schools and bring the children to get them acquainted to school. We did goal setting with families. Then we transitioned into the Innovation Zones. That was all focused on how we get more children from priority populations into quality ECE programs. In North Lawndale, we knew 49% of children in the neighborhood had no connections to formal early learning programs. We thought that, in order to get kids at the kindergarten level, we need to look at ECE enrollment. We looked at each program, looked to providers to share data and work more

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collaboratively, we started tracking the number of priority families enrolled, and we did a better job of seeing if we were serving the families we were trying to serve. We saw that sometimes we were serving those families, and we saw how we’re tracking them much better. But we saw many other pieces not fitting together, like home visiting not transitioning well into preschool, so we worked on that. Recently, we’ve done work on chronic absenteeism, which affects all kids but is specifically affecting low-income children. We’re doing case-management services for kids in pre-k to third grade to understand the root causes of chronic absenteeism for them. We’re learning about barriers. When I think of the kindergarten transition, I think about getting them all into quality ECE, but then it’s also about once they’re in kindergarten and how we’re supporting them. Our chronic absenteeism work has shown that issues at home won’t come up unless you have an intentional support system reaching out to them and asking questions. We’re seeing kids showing up more through those supports. We’ve done work with Early Intervention to make that more helpful to families in the neighborhood, because there are waiting lists for Early Intervention in North Lawndale.

Cathy Main said she is on faculty at the College of Education at UIC. Cathy said I want to talk about family engagement because that’s one of the courses that I’ve been teaching for the past 20 years. I care deeply about how we prepare teachers to collaborate with families and community. This is not something that teachers miraculously know how to do because they’re nice teachers. There’s a knowledge base about engaging with families in meaningful ways. At UIC and at most other early childhood programs, people are deliberate about teaching the skills and knowledge you need to engage all different types of families. One of the first things we did was to blend our courses on engaging families for special educators and for early childhood teachers because there was so much they could learn from one another. They (special educators) are sometimes miles ahead of us on thinking about transitions and difficult conversations. We learned a lot from that connection. At UIC we bring those students together so they take the course together. Another cornerstone of our work is we have a practicum, a family practicum. You have to spend time out in the field working with a family who has young children or a member with a disability. One of the things I make the ECE candidates do is spend time with a family when they’re getting their kids ready for school. I want to make sure that every teacher I prepare in ECE knows what that family member went through to get their kid to school. This is critical, deliberate knowledge that teachers need to have. We have to make sure that it’s part of the skills and knowledge that kindergarten teachers get. The UIC program I run is an MEd program that leads to licensure in ECE and SPED. For 7 years I ran an alternative licensure program. The whole program was geared toward supporting teachers working in community-based agencies in Chicago who had bachelor’s degrees but needed to earn a PEL. One of the key things about this program was looking at their level of experience and what they brought to the table. They brought some of the deepest understandings about working with families and communities. It was a strength. That level of knowledge they were bringing from working with communities and being from communities got us to rethink what we do and how we need to prioritize that strength in ECE. We’re learning how much time we have to spend with people to deal with their own biases. That is the beauty of working with people from communities. When I was admitting people into my program, I was working with a student who felt she didn’t have all the things on paper that she needed to have to be successful. I said, “you grew up in Englewood and went to school there and have been teaching there? You have the skills you need to be successful.” Family engagement matters so much. I could tell you all of that.

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Jackie McDougle said that her twins’ transition to kindergarten was very difficult because when her children were in the three- and four-year-old programs and pre-k, she went through a period of them crying and not wanting to go. She had to sit in class with them to make them comfortable. Once they were in the program for a while, everything started going smoothly. She didn’t have to sit with them. They didn’t cry anymore. When it was time for them to transition into kindergarten, it was so difficult because it was the same process again. They were crying and screaming for their old teacher because, when they were in pre-k for two years they were able to stay with their old teacher. Most of the kids in the class were there for two years also. It was difficult when they started kindergarten at a new school with bigger kids. They would ask mom to come back to school to get them. I had to go through that again for at least two weeks. Right now they’re okay. They’re better because they have the feel of it, but it’s hard for them to transition because they have to go to a new school with bigger kids. My kids were really scared. It was their first day ever going to school. It was hard for me to leave my twins there. One of them was kicking and screaming, one was swinging at the staff, and we didn’t really know the staff. I know they won’t harm my kids, but I didn’t want to leave them. It was hard for me to walk away and leave them fighting because they were scared.

Cynthia Tate asked whether anybody at the school reached out to you before it was time to bring them?

Jackie McDougle said no. At the end of the school year, we were asked what school they were going to attend. I told them. I think personally they should do tours at the school, and let families visit the classroom so they can know what to expect. Going to the school on the first day, my kids didn’t know anybody; it was hard.

Cynthia Tate asked whether anybody from the preschool or kindergarten side gave you any information on what to expect or what to say when they were scared?

Jackie McDougle said no, they sang a song about “bye-bye to pre-k, we’re on our way to kindergarten.” They did it after the graduation. That was the only thing they did. They didn’t tell me what it’d be like. I stay by Wright Elementary and so I knew my kids would attend that school, but that was it.

Cynthia Tate said you just described what we’ve been hearing, even with past panels, what not to do. How it should not go. It doesn’t give you the support you need when your child are scared and crying, and your heart’s breaking because we hate to see our kids cry.

Jackie McDougle said it was not helpful. Her children didn’t want to go; they just seemed like they wanted to give up. They weren’t used to riding the bus with bigger kids because in pre-k they were on the bus with three- and four-year-olds. I had to take them on their first day to give them the reassurance. I said I’d take them. I can say today that everything is going smoothly and they beat me to the bus stop when we go in the morning, but in the beginning I couldn’t let them catch the bus. I took them until they were comfortable.

Cristina Pacione-Zayas asked if the school did anything to help after your kids were upset and over time—have they been intentional about how they’ve supported your kids in getting acclimated? Or has it just been a matter of time?

Jackie McDougle said they got used to it. It was a couple staff that would—one teacher, she knew my kids. The other staff were hurrying me up to leave, and we weren’t able to walk them to class, we could only walk them to the office and the security guard or the teacher had to walk them to class from there.

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Over time they got used to it. I had a teacher that would come by the door to grab their hands and make sure they were comfortable sitting in the cafeteria. They wouldn’t even go in there because they weren’t used to so many bigger kids.

Mary Beth Corrigan asked if Jackie had said there was a security guard.

Jackie McDougle said the security guard would be standing there and you had to talk to him. As parents, we weren’t allowed to go past the office. The teacher or the guard had to take them back. The guards are like police officers. We weren’t allowed to go in the back, to walk our kids to the back. I didn’t even know who their teacher was. We were told that they’d quiet down, they’d stop crying. I have an advocate worker and she was there as well. She was there to help a lot with my kids because they know her. It helped. She sat there and was talking to my kids.

Mary Beth Corrigan asked if the kids ever said what they were scared of.

Jackie McDougle said it was going to school with the bigger kids.

Cristina Pacione-Zayas asked if Jackie’s kids were in a licensed home or a center before they went to kindergarten?

Jackie McDougle said they were in a three-year-old program. They started there at the age of three.

Cristina Pacione-Zayas asked how many kids were served there?

Jackie McDougle said 200.

Cristina Pacione-Zayas asked if it was Vivian Adams?

Jackie McDougle said yes.

Cynthia Tate said thank you—you gave us a good feel for what you and your children experienced. Cynthia asked the room: what do you hear kids and families saying about the transition?

Cathy Main said developmentally we know it’s appropriate for kids to be terrified entering into this thing. That is a normal developmental thing—it’s on the adults in the building taking care of the children, and not just the teachers, to be trained to understand and be skilled in this. It’s also on the administrators in the building, so that they don’t have policies that Jackie McDougle described that were terrifying for their children. That would be my bottom line here. Her children did everything perfectly right. They displayed healthy behavior that children comfortable with their mother would display. It’s what the school, teachers, and administrators did that created this.

Kristina Rogers said that something happened a few weeks ago. We had a family we’ve been working with for a few years who had a kindergartener. The child has been crying—a lot of what Jackie McDougle said, with the kindergarten transition. There’s a new social worker who isn’t trained in what Cathy Main described, because she was ready to call DCFS on this family for the tantrums. We had to sit her down and say that there isn’t a reason to assume that. Even with principals, they’re not always equipped to handle the younger years. I think it’s getting better, but it’s challenging when they have expectations because they instill the same mentality on the younger grades.

Pam Horan-Bussey said that in many of our programs, even at one Head Start kids could go to up to 15 different primary schools. Sometimes staff organize a field trip to the school or a kindergarten teacher to

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come to visit the classroom before the end of the program year. We try to facilitate visiting the school, but often—not only when parents call, but also when staff call to bring an individual family or a group to have a tour—they’re told that’s not an option. During school hours that won’t work, and after school there’s nobody there to facilitate.

Ramona Richards remembers as a kindergarten teacher the choirs of wailing children those first few weeks. She said this reminds me of an issue I’ve seen and heard from my teachers in my program who are currently in kindergarten. Not only is there a need for interventions in early education, but also in content taught in kindergarten itself. As we know, the pendulum has swung away from developmentally appropriate practice. There are fewer opportunities for children to be children and get what they need. What I see in my PD program is that while we’re advocating for best practices like block building, imaginative play, and exploratory play-based teaching, we have pushback from administrators. It’s often easier to use worksheets or expect higher levels of executive functioning than kids are ready for. It’s a need coming into kindergarten, but also in kindergarten, to replicate experiences more familiar to children.

Cynthia Tate said we want to consider populations that might raise additional issues. She addressed Kristina Rogers, who spoke about high risk populations, and Cathy Main, who talked about special education and disabilities. What would you recommend that people pay particular attention to with regards to children with disabilities, children experiencing homelessness, children with IEPs, English learners, and any of those populations that might require additional levels of understanding?

Kristina Rogers said that I’ve seen a lot of schools looking more intentionally at chronic absenteeism data. This can hide in traditional attendance data. By looking at the children who are consistently missing days, if you have people who are looking at the data and reaching out to families in an empathetic way, you can reach those families, and they’re often those struggling with other challenges. I think that’s one way that you see those issues at home manifest at school and you can work with those families to eliminate those barriers.

Pam Horan-Bussey said that we took some of the parent leaders from different programs to the statewide summit for bilingual parents. People came away with information that was powerful in helping their transition. They learned that the purpose of transitional bilingual education is to get your child to be able to transition into English education. Dual language programs’ purpose is to become fluent in all ways in two languages. Knowing that information affected parent choices on what kind of programs they wanted their kids to get into. They learned about the process for testing to determine where a child would be placed, and they learned what kind of test they need to take. They came back and they trained the parents at their programs, and we trained the staff on the benefits of being bilingual. In our programs, about 40% are Spanish speaking and there’s a percentage of Chinese speaking families. The staff in those programs are bilingual already, but learning the importance and strengths of being bilingual was helpful as they thought about transitions into a new education environment.

Ramona Richards said that when it comes to specific populations, we also have priority populations we’re thinking about. At the museum we have programming, signage in English and Spanish, and a play-for-all initiative that invites children with disabilities to have a quieter, more private experience at the museum. In the PD program, we’re hosting family math nights for pre-k through first grade families. We want to create math activities for home that are accessible to diverse kinds of families, immigrants, and

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children with IEPs. We’re thinking about how we’re adapting our learning goals for every school population.

Pam Horan-Bussey said that for our families that are living in temporary living situations or homeless families, we trained our family support staff, via the STLS office in CPS, on how to access the person at each school who is there to ensure that children have the accommodations that they may need. They learned the rights of children with those needs.

Mary Beth Corrigan said that we know about the typical development of children on task, but what about the children who are child welfare involved? For our children, especially those in domestic violence situations, have you seen work to accommodate them in situations that would be scary for typically developing children?

Pam Horan-Bussey said that for children who have an IEP or who have a behavior plan, we have either a disabilities coordinator or staff member who goes with them to the IEP meeting. At the last IEP meeting before the transition, we discuss where they’re going next year. We ask for more accommodations related to that child. Even if you don’t usually offer tours, this child needs a tour. We bring it up during the IEP meeting. Usually they’ve talked with the parent ahead of time to determine where the child will be going next year, whether they’d like to go on a tour, and what that’d be like. We have individual case management supporting children in those situations.

Cathy Main said normally I’d talk about actual strategies, but for me when I’m thinking about special populations, I want to say that family engagement is family engagement, regardless of family. We need to pay more attention to families that have challenging situations, but it’s on teacher preparation to understand what that means and how it might impact a child. They need to understand that process. For example, in our early childhood standards for preparing teachers, we reference that teachers need to understand family system theory. They need to understand the implications of what’s impacting a family. All of that’s learned and part of the process so that when they enter the classroom they have some of this knowledge. We say that kindergarten needs to be ready for the children and the families. We can’t separate out that you need extra special training for these families who are special populations. Every child and family is a special population in some degree. We need teachers who understand that. You wouldn’t have the same policy for every child entering kindergarten. You’d want to have a conversation with every single child. You can’t expect every child to enter kindergarten in the same way, just like you wouldn’t expect every first grader to be able to read the same book in the same way. We don’t value the training that teachers should get on how to engage families. It’s not an extra or an add-on. I see us getting better with our teachers, but I don’t see it with our administrators.

Cynthia Tate asked Jackie McDougle what would’ve been helpful for her and her children in making the transition.

Jackie McDougle said it would have been helpful if I had met their teacher instead of them coming home with a letter from the teacher. I got a note and immediately I called to ask to meet the teacher. If I would’ve met the teacher, if the kids or parents could’ve toured the school, that would’ve been helpful.

Cristina Pacione-Zayas said that, picking up on what Cathy Main said about administrators doing intentional work, can you unpack that? What are some key policies in place now that are barriers for

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administrator understanding, or what do we need to re-envision so we know that administrators know it’s their job to prepare the kindergarten for the children?

Cathy Main said that, in Illinois, we’ve made steps in our principal preparation rules that reference early childhood education. At least we’re there with the rules referencing them. When you talk to people preparing school leaders, they’ll say that it’s difficult to integrate that in, and they’re often two worlds that aren’t integrated (school leadership and ECE). We have to have deliberate connections to get more folks in early childhood teaching positions on paths to become school leaders. They could be doing that work and modeling this. I don’t blame principals for not knowing this, because it’s not a knowledge base that you pick up from walking around your building. It’s a robust, rigorous knowledge base that requires thoughtful attention. We have to keep pushing in that direction.

Diane Rutledge asked if Cathy saw a difference yet with the new principals. Then, how do we connect existing, sitting principals to that experience more?

Cathy Main said that we need more training around what early childhood should look like. KIDS lends a structure to open the door to have “aha moments” for principals to understand how it’s supposed to look. It’s even something for principals to have a conversation with their preschool teachers in their building in a way that’s more meaningful than “oh those kids are so cute.” There’s a chance for leaders to learn something from what the teachers are doing and why they’re doing it. The teacher evaluation can also be a possible lever so they know what they’re looking for. I know there’s a lot of work on the teacher evaluation and there’s a section on environment, but it’s limited in discussing family engagement. We could dig into that. Early childhood and elementary teachers are also trained in different ways, and we have to pay attention to that. Most of our kindergarten teachers are trained as early elementary teachers, not early childhood teachers. I did some preparation and did a quick look at the different standards, knowledge indicators, and performance indicators across early childhood and early elementary teachers, and it’s pretty different. If I were to read the differences to people, we’d likely want our kindergarten teachers to know them both. There’s been a review of teacher preparation standards, a statistical analysis, about the number of words that are mentioned. Does play come up in these discussions? Play is never mentioned in the elementary education standards. What about self-regulation? It’s not mentioned in elementary education standards. Family? Family is mentioned in the elementary standards eight times; it’s mentioned 56 times in early childhood standards. I’ll share the study with you, and it’ll be something for you to consider. That’d be my policy. If we want to get kindergarten transition right, we have to have the adults ready.

Kris Pennington asked if you have ideas on how to do this—what do we do about teachers already in place? How do we get there?

Cathy Main said I participate in a lot of professional development, like around the common core and literacy and math work. I’m always thinking about who’s deliberately offering professional development on family engagement and figuring out how to support kids coming to us from different populations. There’s no endorsement on family engagement – in early childhood, we have family support specialist credentials, but nobody’s paying attention to the kinds of expertise you’d need.

Kris Pennington asked if it’d be helpful to see “X amount of PD hours” around family engagement?

Cathy Main said yes, that’d be helpful.

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Pam Horan-Bussey said our Educare school got a grant to do in-depth professional development with the preschool and kindergarten teachers to align the experience from the point of view of the child. It was a great experience—different teachers and administrators were loving it, but it was a grant that was temporary.

Kris Pennington said that a lot of places are doing great practices, but to make a systems change, the idea of this committee should be to put things in place to get everyone across the board rolling on this.

Pam Horan-Bussey said it would be helpful if there were a way to meet in clusters (all the kindergarten teachers and the 3-5 year old teachers) and if we got a system of professional development.

Cathy Main said you could put a policy out there that rubs administrators the wrong way, but at least it opens up the door for them to think about it in a different way. One option would be to stagger the enrollment of kindergarten kids. What teacher is ready for 30 kids on one day? What if we said you needed to stagger enrollment? It’d upset everybody, it’d cause attendance to go crazy, but it’d bring attention to the importance of what this is all about. If you can’t stagger it, what is your other plan to make this work so parents aren’t leaving crying children feeling frustrated and scared? You could push the envelope on this.

Ramona Richards echoed what Cathy Main said about family engagement not being an add-on. We need a deep understanding that family engagement isn’t a checklist, but a mindset. In a lot of the work I’ve been doing with teachers around strength- and asset-based work in the community, there’s a misconception that parent engagement is the teacher handing down information into the family rather than elevating the parent.

Kristina Rogers said that what I see often with schools and parent engagement is it’s who shows up. You make an event and hope families show up, but that doesn’t work for families with a lot going on at home. Individual one-on-one check-ins help with getting a better relationship, but that can be complicated. We need to give teachers the reasoning for why this matters and will make children do better in school, but it’s also what we should all be doing. They need the resources to do so. It’s a culture change.

Pam Horan-Bussey said we need to maintain the supports that have been cut from the school, like social workers, so there’s a web of support for teachers.

Kristina Rogers said that it’s not always the teacher who has the best relationship.

Joyce said we’ve had at the Ounce a community of practice with kindergarten teachers around the country every other month where teachers will talk about their practice, learning from one another. There was a moment when teachers realized they wanted not to host events but to build relationships, and that the onus was on them to do outreach to families and it was a process of unlearning mistrust and families re-learning that they were being asked to be part of the school community or asked for their opinion and input. They talked about the repetitive nature of outreach and sticking with it until families felt it was all right. There was the benefit of people making the connection, and that connection staying with the school even from teacher to teacher as kids progressed. Someone has to have the time and motivation to do that.

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Cynthia Tate said there needs to be an intention about it and an understanding that that’s not above and beyond but part of the job. When I was at DCFS and we were trying to enroll parents into a training program, our trainers did extreme engagement. It meant being responsive anywhere, anytime. We need a recognition that that’s a proactive, necessary thing to do.

Diane Rutledge said that part of it is changing the definition. Family engagement is more than coming to school and attending events. It’s thinking about how to support them at schools and at home, checking a backpack, whatever the issue might be. In our training programs, we have to define it differently.

Kristina Rogers said that at those events, teachers tend to shame families who don’t participate. We’ve never met a family who doesn’t care about their child’s education.

Diane Rutledge said that, in our recommendations, I’m hoping we can think about other ways that schools can engage with families outside of events.

Bryan Stokes said it sounds like we have a huge hole here. Is it so difficult to change that we can’t put authentic engagement in the recommendations? Is it too hard to put family engagement in the teaching standards?

Cathy Main said that the elementary education standards could benefit from looking at the language in the early childhood standards. One thing I’d do is a scan of teacher preparation programs. I’m assuming that in grades 1-6 they don’t have a family and community engagement class. They tend to only be in SPED and ECE programs. Then, where are you embedding that content in to make sure people get it? I know people get it right in their face while student teaching. That might be something for those programs to look at, to be deliberate and intentional about including content.

Pam Horan-Bussey said we could have a local community way of shaping those processes, to have a way of engaging schools and Head Starts. Even the best principal can’t meet individually with different programs. It’d be great to have an expectation that at some kind of local level there’s a transition workgroup that involves parents, staff from primary, and staff from ECE to come together and come up with a local plan to have a more intentional approach to the smoothing the process for children and families.

Kristina Rogers said that in North Lawndale it’s because of recruitment efforts that we’ve seen that. Administrators see child care homes as places to tap into for the transition.

Gloria Harris said as a person is about to transition into kindergarten, have we looked at which children is this affecting, and in what ways? If you have children that are already in preschool and the only transition they’re making is to go from preschool to another school, that’s different. The transition is more challenging when a child isn’t in any environment that’d be a school and is coming from the home to the school. This child has been at home, and they’ve never been in an environment to socialize with other children. They haven’t been in an environment that’s helped them get ready for preschool or kindergarten. There are all types of transitions, even K-12. The community outreach is important here.

Cynthia Tate said that in previous panel discussions, we’ve touched on how it’s a different transition from a structured environment than from a home. Your point is well taken.

Roger Eddy said part of this is ensuring that everyone is understanding best practices. The comment that there aren’t families that don’t want what’s best for their child is important. The same thing could be

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said for administrators and board members. It would be helpful to somehow develop a list of best practices so they can be distributed in a manner that would support these types of activities.

III. Developing a shared framework for the report: process

Cristina Pacione-Zayas said that she’d like to move us to talking about the process and how we’re going to go about drafting this report. We want to put it up for consideration at this point. We’d like to propose four steps. First, to consider and agree to key terms and definitions. Those would also point to some principles and values and would assemble some background information about this topic in general. We’d do this primarily by looking back at our panels and the themes and topics that kept resurfacing. There’d be some background gathering of research, because we don’t want to reinvent the wheel. We want to be cognizant of the joint resolution and what it charged us to do. The second piece would be to take this information to identify the key factors in the transition that ensure a successful transition from the child perspective but also speak to how schools need to be ready for children. This isn’t just an onus on the child or the child’s family. The third segment would be identifying key policy levers or best practices that can ensure the success factors are present for children. That’d be narrowing those down to state policy-level pieces. Those three pieces would comprise the fourth piece, the generation of the report. I want to throw that out there for comments, feedback, and questions. That’s how we’d like to proceed after getting out of the information-gathering segment.

Bryan Stokes said we’ve talked a lot about things that we perceive administrators not doing, and that if they did them it’d allow transition to be easier. How do we get a sense of the barriers and why they’re happening? Do we need to look at key factors from a teacher or administrator perspective? What are the factors that allow that transition to work?

Cristina Pacione-Zayas said that the administrator piece has been loud in the last few panels. There is room to consider having a panel on administrators. We heard from one principal from Chicago. We need to be cognizant that this isn’t a Chicago-only issue. I’ve reached out to a few committee members and their membership base to have another panel to point to, from their seat as administrators, what they see as barriers. How can we incentivize folks to do the work? Why is it that administrators can see the importance of third grade reading and middle school and matriculation into high school but not prioritize the early years? What can we do to shift that?

Diane Rutledge said she would encourage that to be more around awareness. Nobody goes out of their way to make this an unhappy experience. When we talk about policy, if it comes in the form of a mandate, it’s not going to be embraced. We need to think about having opportunities through things like available professional development and go that route first. In preparation programs, folks haven’t had as much experience or knowledge around early childhood and the transition into kindergarten. If there are things we can think about to engender awareness, that’d be more helpful.

Kris Pennington said that, just like parents and teachers, administrators have good intent but sometimes it’s a matter of another mandate without the tools to do it. One example I thought of that might help to frame things is that I hear lots of principals say they wish families came with the kindergarteners, but we can’t do it anymore because it’s not counted as an attendance day. If we made that simple change, it might help. A lot of administrators feel their hands are tied. They want to do lots of things, but it’s a matter of how to get there. Everybody is stretched so thin, so sometimes it’s a matter of logistics and having enough people in the building.

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Cristina Pacione-Zayas asked that if families attend on the first day of school with kids, that’s not considered an attendance day? Kris Pennington confirmed.

Roger Eddy said I’m a little surprised at the negative administrator tone. I know a lot of administrators that do pay a lot of attention to the transition and appreciate the work done at Head Start and early childhood and understand that students have a transition to make, as much as the transition to middle school. I don’t agree that administrators don’t have a grasp of this. It boils down to a difference of expectations and resources and tools that might be available to get into things like family engagement that might be more necessary at that age level. There are good best practices that are taking place—some of them take resources, some of them require understanding, but I don’t buy the idea that administrators don’t value the transition.

Cristina Pacione-Zayas said that wasn’t my intention. We need to hear from more administrators. Until we heard from teachers, there were thoughts that the conversation was negative toward teachers. Let’s figure out a way to amplify the best practices of administrators that have figured out a way to navigate this.

Roger Eddy said part of this might be that we mentioned training that we might be able to implement for teacher educators. We have added some requirements related to administrator education for early childhood, but we have a lot of administrators already in the field and we have some catching up to do there.

Kristina Rogers said that pre-k and kindergarten are where trends are set, for example with chronic absenteeism. It’s hard when you have that. It happens with Early Intervention, too. For example, there’s too much paperwork. It’s about how we’ve done so much around families to get the word out around how important early childhood is, and I want to make sure we do the same thing in schools.

Gloria Harris said that the system changes from time to time, and now it’s saying that we want children in school earlier, but we want them to be with highly qualified people. When we’re looking at it, many kids are going to early learning, but the system is demanding a higher education for those children. It used to be that you’d be in Head Start or preschool, and it used to be about learning through play. It’s more now that they want preschoolers to be kindergarteners so that when they get to kindergarten, it’s more like first grade. I don’t think that principals are not concerned or care about preschool, it’s just a lot more requirements.

Dan Harris said that the four pieces that you outlined make sense. We’ve heard a lot of best practices, and a lot of people saying here’s what we do and we like it. I don’t know if that’s embedded in key policy levers, but I don’t want to lose those elements.

Cathy Main said I can’t figure out who is pushing first grade into kindergarten or kindergarten into pre-k. We have beautiful early learning standards that are totally appropriate, so it’s not the state. We have guidelines that are appropriate—Head Start guidelines are appropriate for what kids need to know what to do. Administrators are in support. Where is this happening? Who’s telling everyone to push this down and that if they’re not sitting still in pre-k and reciting their ABCs they won’t be ready? Who is doing this? I’m puzzled by this. I know the teacher evaluation system has pushed down some anxiety around preparation and readiness because it’s so high stakes, but in general I’m curious about who’s going around saying this. Why is it happening?

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Jennifer Jones said we had a meeting a few years ago with our administrators on mandated kindergarten assessments. It’s these assessments that pushed it down. It was assessments that kindergarteners were being mandated to use. Jennifer said it was mCLASS and DIBELS.

Cathy Main said DIBELS is supposed to be a planning tool, it’s not supposed to be summative. Maybe it’s a misuse of the testing that’s being required.

Someone said it’s also the upper grade tests.

Lynn Burgett said those are not mandated by our state.

Kris Pennington said there’s a disproportionate amount of elementary and secondary degrees in districts. The experts in early childhood need to have a voice.

Cathy Main said traditionally those people have not taken on leadership roles in schools, and we have to figure out why that is.

Cristina Pacione-Zayas asked if instructional leadership teams are common across the state. Diane Rutledge said yes. Cristina asked if we know if pre-k is included in that if a pre-k is on-site.

Diane Rutledge said it varies. Jennifer Jones said she was a part of her team at her school.

Ashley Long said it probably varies by school and by district.

Cristina Pacione-Zayas wondered if there were guidelines around that. Diane Rutledge said not every school will have an instructional leadership team. Sometimes pre-k will be lumped in with the primary grades. It’s not every single grade level.

Kris Pennington said there are so many schools and districts that are so little.

Roger Eddy referred to the term assessment, or the KIDS assessment, being linked with performance and how it results in beefing up the content and pushing down—I think it comes from that general use of assessment as a performance-ranking tool that is maybe left over and tough to get rid of from NCLB and into ESSA. That has a lot to do with the push down.

Ramona Richards said a common misinterpretation she sees of common core standards is that, in kindergarten, there is specific language around “with support” and “by the end of kindergarten,” and sometimes the expectation is to do something independently in November, which isn’t appropriate. The standard is asking for an approximation hand-in-hand with peers. This is probably adding urgency.

Pam Horan-Bussey said that one thing that might be helpful is a bit of data in this book on teachers’ and parents’ barriers to participation in transition activities. Pam will send the book, by Piantas.

Cynthia Tate said that, to check in, everybody has made sure that everything you wanted to have in the record has been said, questions have surfaced, and everyone feels they’ve had a chance to contribute before discussing more about the report.

Bryan Stokes said that we’re at a good moving-forward point. To Kris Pennington’s point that we can’t have a family day without an attendance day, I’m excited about the administrator panel. Perhaps we can do some myth busting. Bring the policies that keep you from doing good work around early childhood

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and kindergarten readiness. We have to tell people this is a myth, not a mandate, or recommend strongly that policies be changed.

Lynn Burgett said she’s thought of that with regards to school safety; that’s why the guard is meeting families at the door. I remember when they locked our doors. Even that is coming from an environment of safety.

Cynthia Tate said that there’s a saying that today’s problems come from yesterday’s solutions. It helps to recognize where things were coming from, the original intention, and to see if that intention is still applicable. If we approach policy recommendations like that, we can avoid having a situation where any group of participants feels lack of acceptance.

Ashley Long said that Sam Aigner-Treworgy regularly asks about barriers. Ashley suggested that we ask panelists to bring tangible examples of barriers that we can discuss. We got some good examples of administrators from previous panels. That was helpful.

Cristina Pacione-Zayas said that our next panel is on assessments and data. Perhaps we’re looking at the April meeting to focus on administrators. If you have recommendations, please send them to Bethany Patten so we can put together this panel. In some cases we have members who can speak to this as well. It’s important to prep so that we can be concrete about the discussion. The assessments and data panel might be helpful for this as well. When CPS was thinking about early education assessments, it was a district decision. We have to do our part around messaging that.

IV. Adjourn Our next meeting will take place on Tuesday, March 27, at the Illinois State Board of

Education in Springfield and Chicago.i. Chicago: James. R. Thompson Center 14th Fl., 100 W. Randolph St.

ii. Springfield: 3rd Fl., 100 N. 1st St.iii. Dial-In: 888-494-4032 | Access code: 588-061-1393

Our next meeting is March 27. We had a discussion about there being a potential conflict with Spring Break. Is there a conflict with attending?

Kris Pennington can’t attend, Cristina Pacione-Zayas can’t attend, Roger Eddy may be able to attend. It is session day, so the senator will send a designee.

Cristina Pacione-Zayas said we’ll proceed with that date. We’ll add an administrator panel for April. We’ll proceed with the process we laid out for structuring the report.

Bryan Stokes moved to adjourn. Mary Beth Corrigan seconded. Unanimous approval.

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Kindergarten Transition Advisory Committee

Meeting Structure and Timeline

Date Time Location Topic

Tuesday, September 26 12-2 PM Chicago; Erikson Intro

Tuesday, October 24 1-3 PM Springfield; IASB Self-Regulation & Social and Emotional Development

Tuesday, November 14 1-3 PM Bloomington; INCCRRA Language and Literacy Development & Cognition: Math

Tuesday, December 19 2-4 PM Chicago; the Ounce Transitions: Birth to Five Perspectives

Tuesday, January 16 1-3 PM Chicago/Springfield Transitions: Kindergarten Perspectives

Tuesday, February 27 1-3 PM Bloomington; INCCRRA Family and community engagement

Tuesday, March 27 3-5 PM Chicago/Springfield; ISBE Assessments and data

Tuesday, April 17 3-5 PM Chicago/Springfield; ISBE Develop shared framework

Tuesday, May 22 1-3 PM Bloomington; INCCRRA Develop report

Tuesday, June 26 3-5 PM Chicago/Springfield; ISBE Develop report

Tuesday, July 24 3-5 PM Chicago/Springfield; ISBE Develop report

Tuesday, August 28 1-3 PM Bloomington; INCCRRA Develop report

Tuesday, September 25 3-5 PM Chicago/Springfield; ISBE (Tentative) Develop report

September 29, 2018 Submit report

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