School Readiness Council

Middletown School Readiness Council Meeting Agenda Date: ​Wednesday, December 19, 2018 Location: ​Bielefield School, Room 21 Attendance: Monica Belyea ​ ​ x Ed Bonilla Sheila Daniels x Beverly Lawrence x Christine O’Grady x Wendy Berlind x Amy Clarke x Dawn Dubay ​ ​ x Jerome Long Michelle Peterson-Aresco Jennifer Billingsley x Michael Conner x Izzi Greenberg x Donna Marino x Precious Price Jennifer Cannata Rebecca Cuevas Lina Kronenberger Cliff O’Callahan Tiasha Reed Also Present: Submitted/Recorded by: Sheila Daniels Agenda Item Discussion/Motion Recommendation /Action Item 1. Introductions & Donna Marino chimed the meeting to order at Monica’s request at 12:10. Introductions were Announcements made. Izzi shared her Wesleyan University magazine that contained an article on alum, Ilene Rosenthal, titled “Educational Innovation, City by City”. She is the co-founder of Footsteps2Brilliance as most know. Donna noted the next Community Conversation will be held on 1/24/19. Wendy Berlind announced this year’s Preschool Fair date of 1/26/19 at Russell Library. She noted 11 city programs, 1 Kensington program have signed up to participate in the event. Special thanks to Wendy for her continued dedication to this important project. Jennifer announced an upcoming special event on 2/2/19, “ Take Your Child to the Library Day”. She also shared news around the Week of the Young Child (WOYC) activities in April. Jennifer has added a special event to the annual art display at Russell Library; Russell Library will host an after hours semi-formal “Art Show Gala” to kick off the Art Show. Preschoolers and their families Jennifer will will be invited to this event along with other special guests including Dr. Conner as a guest collaborate with speaker and she is working on arranging an appearance by Peppa Pig! Dawn and Sheila on Jennifer also spoke about Screen Free Week. Last year she worked with Eric Assadourian from the WOYC and Rockfall Foundation and she will continue to collaborate with Eric and Sheila on coordinating Screen Free Week. this event in conjunction with the WOYC. Information will be Jennifer also mentioned storyteller, Len Cabral, will be coming to Russell Library the last sent to Jennifer for Tuesday of April. Russell Library is pulling their gaming consoles that week as an experiment for invitations. Screen Free Week in an effort to encourage attention to books and reading. This pilot will serve as an experiment, so to speak, to consider removing them all together from the area. Jennifer added as the consoles quit, they will not be replaced anyway, so this is a good means to get rid of them. In regard to the Art Show; Monica suggested inviting home care providers to participate in art show and Izzi noted the Liberty Bank Foundation likes to support programs such as this and could be tapped into for funds. Monica announced the City Urban Agriculture Group is sponsoring a container workshop on 3/30/19 at Russell Library. MHS Vo-Ag is providing containers for the event. It was suggested that the group connect with SNAP and Kim O’Rourke from the Recycling Dept. regarding this event and their possible participation.  Izzi apologized for missing meetings due to circumstances beyond her control. 2. Minutes Approval Donna Marino moved to accept minutes of Nov. 21st meeting. Christine O’Grady seconded and the motion carried unanimously with 1 abstention from Izzi Greenberg. 3. Financial Report All spaces in School Readiness programs are full. Dawn noted there is nothing new to report as she shares this information with the Council prior to the meeting. She did note we are struggling in our efforts to find care for families and assumes the current CRT dilemma has impacted the need for care. Per Dawn, Marla encourages recommendations continue to be made to the program to show the need for the growing the current enrollment. That said, there is concern around supporting the process at the expense of the families and their search for child care. ACES E.H.S. is interested in partnering with the BOE on future RFP opportunity for funding to run the Head Start program here in Middletown. 4. Alignment to the Dawn noted we are embarking on this plan and at the next School Readiness Council meeting we District Strategic will discuss the plan in the realm of a community conversation. She added two other community Plan Goals for conversations will take place and the PreK - K Alignment Group will also discuss the topic. This 2018-2019 plan is an effort to build alignment with the added benefit of working outside of silos coming together to strengthen our early Under Goal 1/ childhood education work. Teaching & Learning: Creation of early childhood strategic plan, Digital literacy initiative & ELDs coaching 5. Program Dawn noted longstanding concern around teacher loss due in some cases to teacher salaries. She Monitoring & reported programs are working with and benefiting from Dr. Eleanor Osborne’s support. She Supports added Christine O’Grady has designed a “Lunch and Learn” model in an effort to offer follow-up support after training sessions to encourage conversation and sharing among staff. Two of the three large centers are on board with this concept. 6. Advocacy/Alliance Izzi reported the Early Childhood Alliance Advocacy Group is creating a Policy Agenda for the Contact Izzi Update upcoming legislative session. Hoping there won’t be as much focus on items such as C4K, paid Greenberg with any family leave and worthy wages with the recent elections. concerns or ideas Alliance notes: around EC policies * Concerns around what’s right for centers and what’s right for families. and upcoming budget *Lamont transition team, no info yet on OEC leader, items. *Lamont has shown interest in 2Gen Learning model. *OEC is pushing ratio of toddlers to move from regulatory change not legislative change with the current 1 to 4 ratio moving to a 1 to 6 ratio adult to child ratio. There are pros and cons to this proposal, noting the biggest push to support this change is an 8% increase in slots. Atty General office will get the motion, so interested parties should contact that office. The Alliance will probably have to vote to reach consensus on the issue. *State budget still major challenge. Pressure on non-fixed costs getting smaller and smaller *Policy Priorities: Rate increase, increase in funding, homeless families, C4K Program, health interventions including mental health, universal preschool push including centers/mixed delivery not just in our public schools, EITC, earned medical leave, increase minimum wage, and kindergarten enrollment age (push back from Dec. 31) Izzi needs to understand how all of the issues impact Middletown. Email or reach out to her and share opinions. The more info and more connections the better for her advocacy work. She recommends reading The CT. Mirror for more info and updates. She added “Zero Weeks” the documentary on the paid family leave crisis is worth watching and she is working on having it shown at Russell Library. 7. Other & Updates: Adjournment Bridge2Brilliance​ continues to move forward. A meeting will take place after this meeting to address current successes and challenges. The BOE program is going at a high level of speed. Community programs are also working with the program. Question raised about accessing families of children currently not in prek. We have 61 children using the program that are not in our programs using B2B. Dawn is encouraging families to use B2B when she speaks to them upon their inquiring about preschool openings. Plans for both a Winter and a Summer Break Challenge are underway. Jennifer noted word of mouth is happening and she is hearing people talk about B2B at the library. Donna added FRCs are using the program at their playgroups. Monica is meeting with doctors to discuss their promotion of the program at well visits. This is all good news. CT Storytellers​ received grant funds and will be providing storytelling to our programs. Monica applied in partnership CT Health and Ed. Facility (CHEFA) with Middlesex Hospital with the YMCA as the fiscal partner. Grant will support mental health supports. Also noted the same funding request was made to the Community Foundation. Family Engagement Training​ for preschool staff in alignment with the District has been planned for and was postponed. Will be offered in near future. Monica and Beverly have been working on this effort. On Saturdays, beginning in January and continuing through March, programs will host meetings with this group: Parents of Preschoolers (POPS). Anti-Bias Training​ will be planned. Information will be shared once plans are in place. MAIC​ - Ed asked that flyer for Middlesex Area Interagency Council mtg. tomorrow be shared. Guest speaker will address protecting personal information online. Donna noted this agency is a good platform for networking with other agencies. The meeting was adjourned by Monica at 1:04​ ​P.M. Happy Holidays to all! The next meeting of the Middletown School Readiness Council will be on Wednesday, January 16th at Bielefield Elementary School from 12:00 to 2:00 P.M ​Middletown School Readiness Council Shaping our Children’s School Success