School Readiness Council

Middletown School Readiness Council Meeting Minutes Date: Wednesday, September 18, 2019 Location: Bielefield School, Room 21 Attendance: Monica Belyea x Ed Bonilla Sheila Daniels x Beverly Lawrence Christine O’Grady Wendy Berlind x Amy Clarke Dawn Dubay x Rohan Manning x Michelle Peterson-Aresco x Jennifer Billingsley Michael Conner x Izzi Greenberg x Donna Marino x Precious Price Jennifer Cannata Rebecca Cuevas x Lina Kronenberger Cliff O’Callahan Marla Hinz Also Present: Kathryn Thompson, Project AWARE Coordinator x Submitted/Recorded by: Sheila Daniels Agenda Item Discussion/Motion Recommendations/Action Items 1. Introductions, Monica chimed the start of the meeting at 12:08p.m. welcoming Announcements & Meeting everyone back for a new school year. Introductions were made Thoughts Announcements: Wendy Berlind: reminded everyone there will be two preschool fairs at Russell Library this year. The second event will take place on Nov. 2nd. and may coordinate with a parent workshop being planned by Donna Marino and Katherine Thompson. Donna Marino: Announced Liberty Bank funding has been received to support the parent leadership trainings. She circulated brochures/flyers for the upcoming “Taste of Parent Leadership” event on 10/24/2019 offering a preview of the different parent trainings. Becky Cuevas: Noted enrollment at EHS is ongoing. EHS is looking forward to collaborating with the MPS on the upcoming Head Start RFP. This would allow them to serve families and children to school age. Becky also shared news of her invitation to the Home Visiting Consortium that was recently established. Izzi Greenberg: Reported the Racial Justice Coalition is looking forward to the upcoming “Wee the People” workshops taking place Thursday through Saturday at Russell Library. This program’s focus is on empowering children on racial justice. The workshops are all full except the teen workshop. Izzi encouraged people to consider dropping by just to see what was transpiring at any of these workshops. Create Consent Agenda (similar to the BOE meeting agenda A brief discussion around the structure of the School Readiness item) to include monthly Council meetings followed. It was noted this group has a lot of items/reports in an effort to brain power to support ECE and is in a position to take action streamline meeting time. and create change. It was further noted that much of our meeting time is taken up with monthly reports. The Council was reminded the formation of the Council and their meetings are under the grant requirements and protocol. The Council acts as the checks and balances for the grant and needs to be informed by the grant facilitator of the monthly reports that include finances, children being served, and any other business around School Readiness programs and grant requirements. It was suggested that we create an agenda with a consent agenda that includes reports that are within the expectations of the grant that can be voted upon for approval without discussion, unless the need arises, where the items can be pulled by any member for discussion or clarity purposes. 2. Minutes Approval Wendy Berlind moved to accept the minutes of the May 29th, 2019 meeting. Izzi Greenberg seconded and the motion carried unanimously. 3. Financial Report Dawn reminded the Council she is now sending this document out with the agenda for review. There were no questions around the financial report. There are openings at the Y program. Please share this info with anyone that might be looking for child care. 4. Early Childhood Strategic Dr. Conner noted the Early Minds 2022: Pathways to Readiness Dr. Conner will look into inviting Plan and Equity Strategic Operating Plan 2019-2022 has generated the CT Education Commissioner discussion at CABE (CT Association of Boards of Education) and to a future School Readiness at the state level. He is hopeful this plan will create state and Council meeting to discuss these national level movement toward aligning budget needs with issues. educational needs and reducing and eventually eliminating the achievement gap through work to decrease the preparation gap. The plan includes 3 goals around readiness/achievement, social- emotional learning and family/community partnerships. He noted the Board of Education recently voted to approve this plan and he was looking for the Council to do so at this meeting. Izzi Greenberg moved to accept the plan as named above. Becky Cuevas 2nd the motion and the motion carried unanimously. Discussion occurred around preschool experience data gathering to create a system to track the information we are now gathering in a manual manner and perhaps increase the info gathered. Dr. Conner supported the need for data and noted some districts are now using data scientists and statisticians to conduct that important work. Further conversation took place around what our data looks like compared to state data and the data, along with its criteria of reporting, the state is looking for districts to report on. In addition to the data needs, the need to further educate parents/guardians around the importance of preschool was  mentioned. Unfortunately, a lack of understanding the role and importance of preschool for our 3 and 4 year olds continues to keep some children out of preschool programs. Discussion around the topic of home daycare and connecting with those providers took place. There are 25 registered daycare homes in Middletown. Some shared desire to connect and build better relationships with these providers. One provider does have a kindle to use for the F2B program with her children. 5. Legislative Updates Advocacy agenda: Izzi noted she is the co-chair of the Early Childhood Alliance. She encouraged members to consider attending advocacy meetings. Members should notify Izzi of their interest to attend such meetings. Kindergarten entry age will be an item of attention for this committee as well as continued focus on equity, reimbursement and rates. 6. Program Monitoring & Dawn continues to monitor and support programs. All programs Supports are beginning to receive classroom observations and teachers are being coached by Dawn in Bridge to Brilliance. She did note 3 programs are in their NAEYC re-accreditation visit window. 7. Other & Adjournment What are some action items that we could work on? The next meeting of the 1. Continue support of racial equity work Middletown School Readiness 2. Raising compensation for ECE staff and advocacy of Council will be held on 3. Take action around legislative agenda Wednesday, October 16th The meeting was adjourned at 1:01P.M. with a motion from from 12:00 to 1:00P.M. Becky Cueves and a 2nd from Wendy Berlind. Middletown School Readiness Council Shaping our Children’s School Success