School Readiness Council

Middletown School Readiness Council Meeting Agenda Date: Wednesday, November 20, 2019 Location: Bielefield School, Room 21 Attendance: Monica Belyea x Amanda Talbot x Sheila Daniels x Beverly Lawrence Christine O’Grady x Wendy Berlind x Amy Clarke Dawn Dubay x Rohan Manning Michelle Peterson-Aresco Jennifer Billingsley Ex. Michael Conner Izzi Greenberg x Donna Marino x Precious Price Jennifer Cannata Rebecca Cuevas Lina Kronenberger Cliff O’Callahan Marla Hinz Also Present: Kathi Thompson, Melanie Carfora, YMCA Sr. Director of Youth, Family & Childcare Programs, Candace Crane, YMCA VP of Youth Dev. & Community Engagement Submitted/Recorded by: Sheila Daniels Agenda Item Discussion/Motion Recommendations /Action Items 1. Introductions & The meeting was opened at 12:12 with Dawn chiming it to order. Announcements Introductions and announcements were made with several brief discussions. Donna noted the next Community Conversation with Dr. Conner will be held on 12/2 from 5:30 to 7:30 P.M. at Lawrence School with a wellness theme. Subsequent events will be held monthly with the next one on 1/22/20 with an early learning education focus. Dates for events in February and March will be announced in the future. Both sessions will focus on racial equity. Suggested the content of Christine reported opportunity for participation in Circle of Security (COS) will be future community forthcoming. She is currently conducting a training with childcare providers. conversation around Amanda noted the FRC has a COS training going on now as well. school cafe offerings be Monica noted they are working on offering an evening training for those that find announced as part of the daytime training a hardship promotion of the event so  Amanda noted a new offering in the Spring people will be informed. It PLTI training will be offered in January at MxCC and recruitment will run in Dec for was noted there are the program. grumblings of concern Donna is waiting to hear from Parent Trust for funding toward Children’s Leadership around school meal training program. offerings. Monica noted the Parents of Preschoolers (POP) at Russell Library last evening was a lively event. Parent engagement conversation with around 6 families. Dawn will share Circle of Wendy noted the preschool event at Russell Library in November was attended by Security flyer. approximately 15 families, but only 2 were there to inquire about preschool. So, a fall event may not be as effective as expected. 2. Minutes Approval Donna moved to accept the minutes of the October 16th, 2019 meeting. Amanda seconded the motion. The motion carried unanimously 3. Financial Report Please see summary report including updates on open Dawn noted Snow PreK is full and the Y is filling their open spaces. spaces 4. Sharing from the YMCA Melanie Carfora opened her remarks with exciting news, announcing the Y received NAEYC re-accreditation. She went on to note that she is so grateful for the early childhood network in this community that supported her through the process in light of Amber’s leave of absence. This was certainly part of her “positive items” in her report to the Council. Another positive item: The Y has worked hard on staff recruitment and Melanie was pleased to report they now have a solid and more diverse group of teaching staff in place. Challenges: Melanie noted hiring teachers and keeping them motivated, on staff and taking good care of themselves in light of the teaching challenges is a huge challenge. She is focusing time on these challenges to support her staff Filling slots has been a challenge for the Y this year. She noted they typically serve low-income families. They do have a waiting list for some younger children turning 3 yrs in January that will be enrolling soon. Currently,  there are 6 openings at the Y and 2 at Macdonough School. Trauma and early entry into childcare bring challenges to the children in the program. Dawn noted we need to There are additional challenges for programs serving children with special needs. keep this discussion in the Melanie noted we may need to look into an alternative preschool program to support forefront in the hopes of children struggling in preschool and childcare. change and best means to Christine noted we need early identification for children and would like to see serve our youngest therapeutic classrooms for those children. A brief discussion followed with the learners. mention that there is a challenge for this approach with current practices and regulations. Monica noted this topic Dawn noted we need to keep this discussion in the forefront in the hopes of change should be taken back to and best means to serve our youngest learners. the Strategic Planning Sheila noted transitions are also a challenge to those children challenged in the group. Efforts will be made current preschool and childcare setting of attending the part-day Snow School to have that conversation program to meet their needs and then spending the rest of their day in a community in all the early childhood childcare program. groups throughout the city. 5. Early Childhood Strategic Dawn noted the work group is working on curriculum at this time. Plan Bridge2Brilliance work continues with our preschools registering new children for this year’s program work. Expansion at the Kindergarten level has begun in this new school year. The Steering Committee will be meeting following this S.R.Council meeting. 6. Legislative and Coalition for Children in November was a very good one with a focus on family law. Group will keep meeting Middlesex Coalition for December’s meeting will be a presentation on Early Minds with Dr. Conner and Dawn and people are welcome to Children Updates Dubay as guest presenters. Please consider attending. share any info with Izzi or Advocacy Com of E.C. Alliance: Izzi reported the group has developed “buckets for attend each topic of focus they will support during the upcoming legislative session. As stated at past meetings; the group will focus on topics such as: Infant-Toddler care, Family Economic Support, C4K support for adult students’ children, increase to funding and modifying of slots, addressing the benefits challenges with raise in minimum wage, homelessness, staff qualifications, and the Kindergarten entry date law. Donna asked about FRC funding since we lost one of our two centers. Izzi said they are talking about that as well.  Amanda noted there is a lobbyist working for FRC support. 7. Program Monitoring & Dawn noted the MECN workshop in November was well attended. Supports In December, Christine will facilitate on engaging parents and a future training will address anti-bias training. Kathi noted they purchased one 2nd Steps kit for each preschool program to align with K -12 utilization of this program under the AWARE grant. She added 2nd Steps is empathy building focused Where RULER supports recognizing feelings and dealing with them. Both are being used in our schools. Dawn noted this is a nice alignment with some things we are doing at the preschool level. Monica reported she and Dawn have discussed looking into a possible School Readiness scholarship plan in an attempt to support families with financial challenges and child care/preschool needs for their children. A brief discussion around the topic followed. They will continue to work on this and will keep the Council informed. 8. Other & Adjournment .Meeting adjourned at 1:06 The next meeting of the School Readiness Council will be held on Wednesday, December 18th, 2019 from 12:00 to 1:00 P.M. Middletown School Readiness Council Shaping our Children’s School Success