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Making Oregon the best place to be a kid.

What State Leaders Can Do to Help More Students Start Their Education on the Right Track

What State Leaders Can Do to Help More Students Start Their Education on the Right Track

by | Mar 18, 2019 | Benefits of Preschool, Early Works, Policy in Other States, School Readiness

By Allan Golston

Reprinted from Medium with permission from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. 

Allan Golston visits with students at the Earl Boyles preschool. 

Principal Ericka Guynes could see the problem clearly. Students at Earl Boyles — a Portland, Oregon elementary school where more than four-out-of-five students are eligible for free or reduced-priced lunches — were starting kindergarten at least a year behind where they needed to be, socially and academically. And data showed that despite the school’s best efforts, gaps that started before kindergarten were persisting into later grades. The question was what to do about it.

Following a survey of the community and working closely with the school district and the Children’s Institute, the school started an early intervention classroom. After more than a year of additional planning, the school opened its own preschool in partnership with Head Start/Early Intervention. Fast forward to 2019, Principal Guynes and the team at Earl Boyles now face a different problem…

“Students are now coming into kindergarten where they need to be, and we’ve actually had to adjust our curriculum and increase the rigor in later grades because our students are ready to learn at that level. It’s ever-evolving,” Principal Guynes explained to me during a visit to Oregon to meet with early learning leaders last month.

Visiting with Principal Guynes and meeting with some of the teachers and parents at the school, I was inspired by the progress they’ve made, as well as their commitment to meeting the needs of their community and ensuring that students are starting their educational journey on the right track.

There are schools across the country that have similarly focused on Pre-K as a critical milestone for students (which research backs up) and acted on that information. But it does raise the question — is there more policymakers can do to help more kids attend high quality Pre-K programs like the one at Earl Boyles Elementary? (Spoiler: the answer is “yes!”)

 Currently, 1.5 million children are being served by state Pre-K programs across the country, with another 730,000 4-year-olds enrolled in Head Start. And as governors from across the country gather in Washington, D.C. this week to discuss crucial issues facing states, I hope they will spend some time discussing ways those children can be better-served through consistent, high-quality Pre-K programs.

While the majority of our foundation’s investments are directed towards supporting secondary and post-secondary student success — particularly among low-income families and students of color — our Early Learning strategy is centered on learning and codifying strategies for improving quality of state-administered Pre-K programs. We are doing this work in partnership with Washington State, Oregon, and Tennessee. As we work with partners to improve the quality of Pre-K programs in those states, we hope to learn best practices and share those lessons with other states.

Based on work we’ve done with researchers, program leaders, advocates, and other funders, we have a much clearer sense today of what it means to be a “quality” public Pre-K program. Certain program elements — things like a strong curriculum and positive interactions between children and families — help secure lasting gains for young learners. When these elements of quality are in place, it makes sense to maximize public investment.

There are also policies states can put in place that make delivering quality programs more likely and reliable. Here are three policy considerations that deserve more attention:

1. Increasing funding for Pre-K is great. But increasing predictable, streamlined, and sustained funding for quality Pre-K is even better. While many states are increasing funding for Pre-K, early learning programs across the country don’t have the resources to improve their quality. And where there is funding in place, the complicated nature of tangled funding streams across federal, state, and district dollars both increases unpredictability and puts a large administrative burden on school staff — which can detract from emphasizing quality.

2. Support early learning educators with professional learning opportunities. The low wages Pre-K teachers are paid, coupled with the expense of continuing their education and certification, often leads to many Pre-K educators leaving their classrooms in pursuit other opportunities. As a result, we’re losing lots of great Pre-K teachers across the country. States should prioritize professional learning for educators that can help them grow, earn degrees, and continually improve their craft, which will make it more likely they’ll stay in Pre-K classrooms.

3. Use data not just to track compliance, but to drive improvement. The story of Earl Boyles Elementary reinforces the power of providing leaders with quality data they can use to engage their community and improve the type of instruction students receive. Pre-K program providers, K-12 schools, and communities can similarly use data to “connect-the-dots” and show how students are doing as they start kindergarten, how they progress from grade to grade, and to make sure that the social, emotional, and academic gains students receive in quality Pre-K programs are being sustained over time.

Research has shown that if students receive a high-quality Pre-K experience that includes strong teacher-child connections, skilled and supported educators, and a strong curriculum, they are far less likely to fall behind in the first place. They are also more likely to read earlier, graduate from high school on time, and are more likely to go to college. School leaders like Ericka Guynes and the team at Earl Boyles are making those opportunities a reality for their students. I hope state leaders in D.C. this week explore how they can do the same.

The Foster Care Fix: Invest in the Services Proven to Keep Kids in Their Homes

The Foster Care Fix: Invest in the Services Proven to Keep Kids in Their Homes

by | Mar 6, 2019 | Home Visiting, Oregon Policy, Oregon Research, Parents and Families

Guest Column by Leslie Brown, Program Director, Children’s Relief Nursery at LifeWorks NW

Oregon’s Child Welfare System needs help. Our system for reporting abuse and neglect can be confusing, we do not have enough foster families or child welfare workers, and there are currently 84 foster children who’ve been sent out of state for care. These issues hit young children hard: according to the Oregon DHS 2017 Child Welfare Data Book, 45 percent of children in the Child Welfare System are under 6. While additional funding to improve this system is important, it is even more critical that we invest in programs that help keep young children out of foster care.

Fortunately, we know what it takes to keep kids in their homes. Relief Nurseries offer tailored, trauma-informed services to support families with children ages birth to 5. As a clinician working in the field of early childhood for 40 years and Program Director for the LifeWorks NW Children’s Relief Nursery, I have seen firsthand the impact Relief Nurseries can have on a family. We provide wrap-around services to families that reduce parental stress and social isolation. We teach parenting skills, strengthen bonds between parents and their children, and provide targeted services that reduce child behavioral problems and improve social-emotional development in very young children. These services include therapeutic classrooms for children, respite care that enables parents to take care of personal or family matters, regular home visiting to help families achieve family goals and build healthier parent-child relationships, and access to family counseling and consultation with an early childhood mental health therapist. Research shows that these types of primary prevention activities build the protective capacity of parents, keeping kids out of foster care.

According to the most recent evaluation conducted by Portland State University, the families Relief Nurseries serve have an average of 16 risk factors associated with abuse and neglect. This same evaluation shows that 98.5 percent of children working with Relief Nurseries between 2008 and 2010 avoided foster care placement. Children already in foster care who work with Relief Nurseries exit the system twice as quickly as those who don’t. Relief Nurseries provide additional benefits to parents and children, including increasing the percentage of parents reading to children, decreasing emergency room visits, and improving family economic stability.

LifeWorks NW is one of 31 Relief Nurseries and satellite sites operating in 17 counties in Oregon. According to a Children’s Institute interview with Cara Copeland, Executive Director of the Oregon Association of Relief Nurseries (OARN), these sites serve roughly 3,000 children in 2,600 families. But there are many more families across the state who could benefit from these services: based on the number of cases of reported abuse and neglect among children ages 0–5, OARN estimates that there are more than 36,000 young children across the state whose families need these programs.

Oregon has an opportunity in 2019 to keep children out of foster care by investing in Relief Nurseries. Governor Kate Brown, supported by a coalition of early childhood advocates, has called for a $5.6 million investment from the state to open two new Relief Nurseries and seven satellite sites, as well as expand the capacity of current programs. This is a smart investment for the state not only because Relief Nurseries have been proven to keep kids out of foster care, but also because for every $1 that the state invests in these programs, Relief Nurseries raise an additional $1.80 in private revenue.

I hope Oregon’s lawmakers will support this common-sense approach to fixing our state’s over-burdened foster care system. We should improve our Child Welfare System so that we no longer need to send foster children out of state for care. The best way we can do that is to provide families with the support they need so that children can remain in their homes receiving the love and care they need.

The Policy-Practice Feedback Loop: Putting Outcomes First

The Policy-Practice Feedback Loop: Putting Outcomes First

by | Dec 1, 2018 | CI in the News

By Mari Megias

This piece originally appeared in the Harvard Kennedy School Alumni Stories.

Swati Adarkar, a 1989 graduate of the two-year MPA program at Harvard Kennedy School, wants every child, regardless of family income, to have the best possible start in life. This is why she helped launch Children’s Institute to advocate for early childhood education, health, and safety.

“If you start to look at where you can make the biggest difference, it’s in early childhood. There’s abundant research on the critical impact of the developmental period for children prenatal through age eight,” she says.

Adarkar rattles off statistics with an ease that demonstrates her passion. She notes that families in the United States have a more difficult time than families in many other countries. “It’s not the same as places like Finland and Sweden, where there’s a real commitment to paid leave and childcare. Here in the U.S., we have a whole host of kids who are coming from behind. Those kids and families need supports, so what we do is work to improve lifelong health and education outcomes by increasing public investment in high-quality early childhood services like preschool.”

As president and CEO of Children’s Institute, Adarkar leans on her Harvard Kennedy School education daily. It was at the Kennedy School where she took courses on poverty and inequality from David Ellwood and Robert Reich, among others. “I received a great grounding in how to think about persistent social problems,” she says.

In 2007, one of those problems was under consideration by the Oregon legislature. The leadership of Children’s Institute’s persuaded the state to nearly double its investment in Oregon Pre-kindergarten (OPK), a state program modeled after the federal Head Start program that helps children ages three to five growing up in poverty to be ready for kindergarten. With this additional state funding, 3,000 more children received services than otherwise would have. “In addition to preschool, OPK and Head Start provide a connection to essential health and other stabilizing services and engages families,” says Adarkar.

This successful work put Children’s Institute on the map in Oregon. With increased public funding, Adarkar says, “we moved into implementation.” In 2010, Children’s Institute launched its Early Works initiative in one urban and one rural community in Oregon. Early Works supports high-quality early learning in elementary school settings, including preschool and family services like birth-to-three playgroups, parenting education, and health and housing resources. “We are interested not just in the why but the how,” says Adarkar. “Through the process of engaging with partners including school districts, Head Start, community-based organizations, and families to implement Early Works, we’ve seen a powerful ripple effect. Early Works demonstrates that high-quality preschool and supports for families can close opportunity gaps and help kids enter kindergarten prepared for success.”

The lessons learned through Early Works drive Children’s Institute’s advocacy work. Adarkar notes, “If you do traditional advocacy, your cycle of work might be to focus on a legislative session, make the case, figure out where you are at, retool, then do it again. But you don’t necessarily know what’s happening on the ground. The policy-practice feedback loop guides our effort and gives us a deeper understanding of what works best for kids and families.”

Children’s Institute continually evaluates its efforts, including through the ongoing longitudinal study at Early Works on the impact of increased investment in early childhood education in Oregon. And with Adarkar at the helm, thousands of children in Oregon already have a better start in life.

Supporting the Early Childhood Workforce: Alga’s Story

by | Jun 29, 2016 | Educators and Workforce, Teacher Voice

Supporting the Early Childhood Workforce: Alga’s Story

Weldeindrias works with a student while volunteering in Katie Wiegel’s classroom.

“Alga, you always had your work prepared to bring to class and you took your academic responsibilities very seriously,” says Yolanda Buenafe, early childhood education instructor in Mt. Hood Community College’s Assistant Teacher Career Pathway program. “Your questions were very focused on what you wanted to accomplish.”

Alganesh Weldeindrias smiles as she listens to her teacher’s praise. Today is her graduation day, and she has earned a certificate from Mt. Hood Community College qualifying her to apply to the Oregon Registry for her Child Development Associate, or CDA. Not only has she completed her certificate program, but Weldeindrias had perfect attendance, attending the program four nights per week for ten months, and earned a 4.0 grade point average. She is now qualified to be an assistant preschool teacher in Oregon.

Weldeindrias says she loves working with children and is thrilled to make a career of it. “They’re funny and they’re innocent,” she says. “And they make me feel good.”

The Mt. Hood Community College Assistant Teacher Career Pathway program has operated for two years, with funding from Oregon’s child care division, to support people working with young children move up in their careers.

Supporting the Early Childhood Workforce: Alga’s Story

Weldeindrias receives an award for perfect attendance. Four nights a week for ten months, she never missed a class.

The program is a very successful example of how Oregon can diversify and professionalize its early childhood workforce. The state can build up existing human capital in communities by connecting people who work with young children to resources and educational opportunities.

Students like Weldeindrias and her fellow graduates are an example to Oregon of what can result when the state supports a true pathway to educational achievement in the field of early learning. As the state implements high-quality preschool programs like Preschool Promise, it would do well to increase investments in similar Career Pathway programs around the state. Research shows that high-quality teachers are both well-educated and representative of the students they teach. The Career Pathway program and others like it are sound state investments because they result in high-quality teachers.

“We give students the opportunity to take college early childhood education classes to earn a certificate that’s part of an early childhood education degree,” says Angelique Kauffman-Rodriguez, Career Pathway Specialist.

The program also helps students gather hours in the classroom, prepare their portfolios and study for an exam. Successful completion of these elements, in addition to being observed in the classroom, qualifies the students for their CDA. Graduating students who wish to continue their education, like Weldeindrias, are already halfway to an Associate’s degree.

“We’re developing a next-level program to help students earn their Associate’s degree because of demand from successful students over the past two years,” says Kauffman-Rodriguez.

In addition to early childhood education courses, the Career Pathway program provides support around college-level learning skills, including writing and studying. Because of the state’s funding, the students also receive scholarships covering the full cost of tuition, textbooks and exam fees. These supports are critical to the program’s success, and this year 11 students completed the program.

Weldeindrias is thrilled with what she’s learned. “We learn how to guide the children,” she says. “Social emotional, physical, cognitive, how to support the kids.”

She says that her most useful lesson has been the importance of understanding children’s feelings. “We have to understand their actions, why they do what they do. We have to listen and be at their level.”

This is a lesson that Weldeindrias has even put to use at home, with her own three sons.

Supporting the Early Childhood Workforce: Alga’s Story

Weldeindrias and her husband pose with her graduation certificate.

“I used to use a lot of time out for my kids, but it’s not helpful,” she says. But now when they fight or act out, she has a conversation with them about what is really bothering them. “If they have a problem, we solve the problem.”

Roni Pham, professional development specialist at the Oregon Department of Education’s Early Learning Division, spoke at the graduation ceremony to share this vision. “I’m really glad that the Early Learning Division had an opportunity to provide funding for this,” she said to the graduates. “You did exactly what we knew you would do. This is what we said this program was capable of producing.”

After the graduation ceremony, Weldeindrias posed for photos with her classmates, her family and with Earl Boyles Elementary preschool teacher Katie Wiegel, whose classroom she has volunteered in for the past two years.

“I like Earl Boyles,” Weldeindrias says. “It’s where my kids are. I would love to work there!” She has applied for an open assistant teacher role for the fall.

Eager Learners: Earl Boyles Serves Infants and Toddlers in Play and Learn Program

by | Jun 22, 2016 | Health and Development, Parents and Families

“Put your shaker on your nose, on your nose!” A dozen parents and caregivers, gathered in a classroom at Earl Boyles Elementary in southeast Portland, sing along together, encouraging their children to touch their egg-shaped shaker-instruments to their noses. Many of the toddlers are engaged in the activity, while babies listen and watch their parents perform the action with fascination.

A room full of infants, toddlers and parents at an elementary school may seem unusual, but it’s the new normal at Earl Boyles, a site of the Early Works initiative. Early Works partners at Earl Boyles have previously launched a preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds and are now turning their attention to providing programs for families with even younger children. The group has gathered weekly all spring to play and learn together with the guidance of facilitators. More than 30 children have participated.

Research shows that the first three years of life are a critical window of development. Reaching families early with services and support puts children on track for school and life success.

Eager Learners: Earl Boyles Serves Infants and Toddlers in Play and Learn Program

Parents, grandparents and children celebrate on graduation day.

High-quality play and learn groups are a proven strategy to do just that. The play and learn group at Earl Boyles follows evidence-based quality practices by offering fun educational activities that can be done at home, ideas for transforming everyday activities into learning opportunities, and guidance around early childhood developmental milestones.

The facilitators – Early Works site liaison Andreina Velasco, play and learn program consultant Ginger Fink, and Earl Boyles parent Macy Kuang – launched their group to provide all these tools to families with children birth to age 3.

Moreover, the group serves to welcome young families into the school, tying directly to Early Works’ goal for the school to be a community hub for all families.

“Our goal was to make families very comfortable… and build relationships,” Fink adds. “We want families to be so comfortable at school it’s like a second living room.”

Ultimately, building relationships with families beginning when a child is very young makes the transition to kindergarten easy and seamless. For children, the school environment is familiar and for families, trust in the school has been established. For teachers, a child’s developmental progress is already known and any necessary support can already be in place.

A number of key factors were built into the plan for the group to ensure its success.

For example, an important consideration for the facilitators in planning the Earl Boyles play and learn group was ensuring it was culturally appropriate for families in the community. To this end, all of the group’s activities are conducted in three languages – English, Spanish and Chinese. The involvement of Kuang, a Chinese parent, is a critical component of expanding the group’s cultural relevance.

Eager Learners: Earl Boyles Serves Infants and Toddlers in Play and Learn Program

Baby Leo discovers his reflection.

“Having Macy as the co-facilitator is a really great way for us to build our capacity and cultural knowledge of the Chinese speaking families in our community,” says Velasco.

Kuang says that in addition to helping facilitate, she wanted to be involved for her 2-year-old daughter. “I want her in the play and learn group so she can learn English, she can learn Spanish, and also learn Chinese.”

Research shows that language development happens at an explosive pace during a child’s first three years. The group’s trilingual approach takes advantage of this developmental window, allowing participating children to hear sounds and learn words in multiple languages.

Another consideration was including the Ages and Stages Questionnaire, or ASQ, as part of the program. The ASQ is a developmental screening tool for young children. It is easy for parents and caregivers to use to determine whether their child is on track developmentally as well as to identify and address any delays or gaps as early as possible. The screenings are available for parents to conduct while they play with their child.

“It’s really neat because it’s really valid. You see it happening,” says Fink. “If a question asks, can your child stack blocks, go play with the blocks and you’ll know.”

Because of the variety of partnerships Earl Boyles has formed with service providers in the community, the play and learn group has a mechanism in place to refer families to services and support programs if they have concerns or detect delays.

The program’s impact is easy to see when you attend. “Every week there’s a success story,” says Fink. “By pointing out to families that there’s a marker of development, or something exciting is happening with a baby, or all of a sudden a child who wasn’t saying any words three weeks ago babbles away. For us, that’s remarkable stuff.”

The families, too, feel that the program has had impact.

Bulla Chong Kainoa brought his son to the group to help him prepare for preschool in the fall. “I like that they teach my son gross motor skills and he’s able to learn how to be with his peers. I like how attentive the teachers are and you can tell that they care about the children.”

Candice Beard’s 2-year-old daughter spends much of her time at home socializing with her older brother who is four-and-a-half. “This group gives her a lot of exposure to babies who are her age and socialization with younger kids than she usually plays with,” she says.

At the end of May, Earl Boyles hosted its youngest graduation celebration yet for 12 infants and toddlers. Each family received a certificate and a gift bag full of activities and books. But the children’s favorite gift was balloons, which immediately captured their attention. As each family came up front to be honored, Velasco shared the developmental milestones that their children achieved during the program.

Plans are underway for next year, and the facilitators are working to ensure the program at Earl Boyles is sustainably run and funded. They also have advice for other schools or communities interested in launching a play and learn group to reach young families.

Velasco emphasizes how important it is to leverage talent already in the community by including a parent co-facilitator. “It builds cultural and linguistic capacity and it’s really wonderful to have an inclusive, intercultural space,” she says.

“Gather your energy, look for resources, find yourself some colleagues out there and start your own program,” says Fink. She recommends the National Women’s Law Center as a fantastic resource.

Eager Learners: Earl Boyles Serves Infants and Toddlers in Play and Learn Program

Andreina Velasco plays with Elsa San Juan and her son.

High-quality play and learn programs like this one are an effective way to build relationships between schools and families, provide parents with skills and ideas for teaching their children, and improve children’s kindergarten readiness and school success.

As Elsa San Juan, who participated with her 1-year-old son, puts it, “It is more than a game for kids, it is for a child’s learning so that they can strengthen and grow.”