EducareLincoln

Evaluation Snapshot2018-2019

Authors: Mashael Altwijri, Dawn Davis, Helen Raikes.

The UNL Local Evaluation Partner team acknowledges KatieBrennan, Lisa Lenz and students in Speech and LanguagePathology; we also acknowledge, Jan Esteraich, Josh Byrd, YaoYao, Katelyn Hepworth, Qingyu Jiang, Jamlick Bosire in Child,Youth and Family Studies.  

We also gratefully acknowledge the staff, children, and parentsat Educare Lincoln.                                             Finally, we acknowledge the National Evaluation Partner atFrank Porter Graham, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.   

This evaluation was funded by the Buffett Early Childhood Fund. With gratitude to Jessie Rasmussen, Gladys Haynes and othersat BECF who have made this work possible.

The results in this booklet are from the 2018-2019 school year.

Acknowledgements

Opened in March, 2013  and is currently a collaborative effort of the Buffett EarlyChildhood Fund (BECF), Lincoln Public Schools (LPS), and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL). Educare of Lincoln is part of the larger, national network of 24 EducareCenters located throughout the U.S. which build on Head Start and Early Head Start.

Educare Lincoln

Educare Lincoln

Educare Lincoln Evaluation

Local Evaluation Partner (LEP) The evaluation is provided by the College of Education and Human Sciences, Departmentof Child, Youth, Family Studies, University of Nebraska, Lincoln to answer the followingquestions:• Who does Educare of Lincoln serve?• How are families faring and contributing to their children’s development?• Are classrooms of high quality?• Are children benefiting and achieving positive outcomes in language development,general school readiness, social-emotional development, and other ways?

Who does Educare Lincoln serve?

18Countries of origin

34% Single-Parent

74%Work full-time

47%English Language

Learners

Who were the children served?

51%Female

9%Verified for

Special EducationServices

Supporting children's home language will ...

Strengthenchildren's

language skills inboth home

language andin Englishlanguage

Keep childrenconnected with 

family andcultural

traditions

Promotechildren's

braindevelopment 

Enhancechildren'sacademic

performance

Food Ran Out

Were Homeless

Food Worry

Homeless Worry

What were families’ stressors?

*N: New families who joined Educare Fall 2018**R: Returning families who have joined Educare Spring 2018 or earlier

N R N R

19% 6% 43% 30%

14% 13%2% 2%

Resources for families ...

MyLNKThis app allows you to access resources from nearly 400 organizationsand 700 programsfor: Education, Employment, Food, Health, Housing, Legal, etc.https://lincoln.ne.gov/city/natf/community.htm

Good Neighbor Community CenterBasic and Emergency Assistance ProgramsFood Distribution Programhttp://www.gncclincoln.org/services.htm

People City MissionHelp center which provides: food, furniture, clothing.. etcFamily shelter and other serviceshttps://pcmlincoln.org

Where did families take their children in the community?

61% 68%

Visit Zoos Visit Libraries Visit Museums

75% 56%

*N: New - families who joined Educare Fall 2018**R: Returning - families who have joined Educare Spring 2018 or earlier

55%52%N

R

Visit Parks

46%30%

https://www.lincolnzoo.org https://lincolnlibraries.org

https://www.lincolnchildrensmuseum.org/

Places to visit ...

https://www.lincoln.ne.gov/city/parks/

How DID families support their children's development?

26% 24%

Read daily totheir children

Talk daily aboutletters andnumbers

 Play games dailywith theirchildren

15% 14%

*N: New - families who joined Educare Fall 2018**R: Returning - families who have joined Educare Spring 2018 or earlier

25%13%N

R

Read and tell storieseveryday.

Ask open-endedquestions (e.g. What?

How?)

Play games. Use apps such

as Ready Rosie toget more ideas.

Talk throughout theday.

Name and labelthings.

How CAN families support their children's development?

What are parents' levels of education?

Parents'level of

education

24%     Less than a high school diploma

11%     High school diploma

38%     Two years or more of college education

31%     Enrolled in job readiness programs

Parents reported what they like about Educare ...

I like the fact that teachers give continuous feedback aboutmy child's progress.

I enjoy spending time around my child's teacher.

The staff are amazing. They are always there to help and veryinformative.

Staff are committed, honest, caring, and treat everybody equal.

Are classrooms of high quality?

Classrooms met the criteria forhigh quality interactions*

of Infant/Toddler

100%of

Prek

83%

*Based on scores of 5 or above on the ITERS-3 (Infant/toddler) and ECERS-3 (Pre-K)

Classrooms met the criteria foremotional and behavioral support*

of Infant/Toddler

100%of

Prek

100%

*Based on scores of 5 or above on the CLASS

Are classrooms of high quality?

How did children's English language grow?        

Fall 2017 Spring 2018

Children met the goal forreceptive language skills*

*Based on standard score of 100 or above on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (Dunn & Dunn, 2007) for thePrek, and the Developmental Assessment of Young Children-Second Edition (Voress & Maddox, 2012) for Infantsand Toddlers.

Infant and Toddler

Prek children

39% 79%

32% 33%

21% of childrenperformed at or

above thenational average

in the fall and33% did in the

spring **

Executive Function

*Based on t score of 40 or above on Devereux Early Childhood Assessment (LeBuffe & Naglieri, 1999), attachmentand protective factors scales.**Based on a standard score of 100 or above on Minnesota Executive Function Scale (Carlson & Zelazo, 2014)

Social-emotional

91% of children showed strong

attachment and 91%of children had

strong overall social-emotional

development  inspring*

How did children's social-emotional andexecutive function skills grow?

Classroom qualitydata

Teachers improvedlanguage activities and

interaction scores

How did the program use data to improve services?

Family data on books and daily reading

Children's executivefunction data

Children's executivefunction skills

improved from fall tospring

Master teachers worked withteaching team to set goals and provide

support based  on classroomobservation data.

Teaching staff used data to identifychildren's needs and strengths, and

used activites in the classrooms.

FES provided opportunities and libraryevents, Kiwanis read to children and

provided books monthly.

Returning families hadhigher rates of daily

reading

What are some opportunities for growth?

Continue to help teachers build their toolboxes of social emotional support throughConscious Discipline, mindfulness and executive functioning support.Help teachers develop skills in teaching science skills, as is the aim of the newEarly Science Initiative project.

Support for Families

Support for ChildrenFocus intensively on supporting child language development, particularly fordual language learners. Continue to focus on developing children's social emotional skills.The new Early Science Initiative may provide supports for executive function andlanguage skills.

Support for classrooms and staff

While more Lincoln parents visit libraries than in the past, Lincoln parents still lagbehind others in the Educare network in having books available for their children,having books in their home language and in reading daily to their children. EducareLibrary and resources can support this recommendation.

The partnership between Educare of Lincoln and Local Evaluation Partner team has servedto support these goals and to reflect on progress using these findings.

Overall, Educare of Lincoln has worked to achieve its goals and the data continue to showgrowth across areas. The data reflect growth in language and executive function skills andconsistent levels of high quality. Families show increasing rates of engaging in learningactivities with their children at home. There is room for continued growth and each year newfamilies enter Educare. The program’s use of the data to support continuous programimprovement and to identify areas of need are seen in the addition of targeted activities,such as Mindfulness and Mastery and Ready Rosie, to continue to meet these challenges.

Is Educare of Lincoln meeting its goals?Educare of Lincoln’s families represent a diverse community who work to support theirchildren’s development and achieve their families’ goals in partnership with the program.Educare provides a high-quality setting with trained teaching staff that engage inevidence-based teaching practices to support children’s language, social-emotional,physical, and cognitive development.

What's coming in 2019-2020?The Mindfulness and Mastery project will enter its fourth year and expand itsoutreach to include parenting stress reduction and additional classroom activities andstaff supports.

The Ready Rosie project will work to increase the home-school connection andparents support for their children’s learning by providing examples of home learningactivities.

The Early Science Initiative will begin this year and provide teaching staff training onintroducing science concepts through engaging activities.

Educare Lincoln will continue to provide support for children and families by offeringand through community partnerships with Community Crops, Lincoln City Libraries,the Kiwanis Club and others.

The University of Nebraska does not discriminate based on race, color, ethnicity, national origin, sex,pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, disability, age, genetic information, veteran status,

marital status, and/or political affiliation in its programs, activities, or employment.

LEPUNL

Prepared by: Local Evaluation Partners, Universityof Nebraska-Lincoln For more information, please contact: Dr. Helen Raikes hraikes2@unl.edu