Happy End of May Readers!
The end of the school year is fast approaching and what a wild ride it’s been! But now the sun has returned and with it an opportunity to rest and reinvigorate, not to mention, the ability to look forward to a sense of normalcy in the coming months.
Since this is the final newsletter of the school year, the Early Learning Team would like to wish you all a very good summer with laughter and fun and several good catnaps in between. We'll be back in September and look forward to seeing you then. 😊
Best Wishes!
Early Learning Team
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Washington STEM has released the State of the Children: Early Learning & Care report series (2020-21), which was developed in partnership with Washington Communities for Children (WCFC). Reports include a region-by-region examination of data that highlights some of the most critical aspects of our early learning and child care systems, as well as unique stories/voices from each region.
You can find the State of the Children: Early Learning & Care reports on the Washington STEM website here.
Washington STEM has partnered with the Office of Innovation, Alignment, and Accountability (OIAA) at the Department of Children Youth and Families (DCYF) and other partners, to create the Child Care Need and Supply Data dashboard, a tool that reflects the current state of Washington’s child care capacity and demand. You can find the Child Care Need and Supply Data dashboard here.
This fall, incoming kindergarteners may enter kindergarten having had fewer opportunities for in-person learning than in previous years. Children may demonstrate a wider range of skills and abilities than is typical, so it will be helpful for teachers to gather as much information as possible to learn about their new students and design instruction to meet their needs. The resources below could be used by whomever provided care for young children before they enter kindergarten, families and early learning providers, to introduce the child to their kindergarten teacher. Schools and kindergarten teachers may promote particular kinds of resources but should also be open to the various different ways that families may choose to share information about their children.
Introducing Me! Booklet: This booklet is available for families to fill out before they meet with their child’s teacher for the first time during the Family Connection Meeting at the beginning of the school year. It includes family-focused guiding questions for the teacher to learn about the child and the child’s family during the meeting.
Available in 19 languages, these booklets can be printed in color or black & white. Schools must print their own copies to distribute to families during kindergarten registration or at the Family Connection Meetings.
The Washington State’s Kindergarten Transition Summary Form:
The Kindergarten Transition Summary Form is a multi-faceted tool created to:
- Establish shared expectations for school readiness between preschool and kindergarten teachers.
- Provide a means of communication about children’s skills and abilities.
- Support children and families as they transition into kindergarten.
- Provide information to help schools and teachers get to know each child prior to the start of school.
If the child has been out of child care and stayed home with families, families may fill out the form to share their observations of the child.
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 Washington educators have the opportunity to pilot a new curriculum to support all students’ ability to cope with stress, traumatic stress, and loss, while fostering hope and building skills that promote healing and resilience. Bounce Back for Classrooms (Grades 2-5) and Students Trauma and Resiliency (STAR) (Grades 6-12) are founded upon the evidence-based therapeutic Bounce Back and CBITS programs.
The curriculum has been developed by education and mental health professionals at the National Native Children’s Trauma Center (NNCTC) at the University of Montana. NNCTC will provide training and technical assistance to educators interested in piloting the curriculum. This opportunity is appropriate for any school staff who provides tier one/universal supports for students, such as classroom educators, schoolwide student support staff, and paraprofessionals with familiarity with trauma-informed practices and systems.
More information about the trainings and the requirements of pilot sites can be found in the pilot information documents:
Bounce Back for Classrooms Information (Grades 2-5)
Students Trauma and Resiliency (STAR) Information (Grades 6-12)
After reading the informational documents, we hope you’ll be interested in joining the training and implementation of a curriculum. Each individual educator who’s interested in joining the pilot should answer the survey for the curriculum that fits their grade level. Potential dates for trainings are also listed in the surveys. Final dates will be scheduled based on interest and will be set by early June.
Grades 2-5: Bounce Back for Classrooms Sign-up Survey
Grades 6-12: Students' Trauma & Resiliency Sign-up Survey
*This Tier 1 opportunity is based on the Tier 2 and Tier 3 CBITS, Bounce Back, and SSET programs. For school staff looking for Tier 2 or Tier 3 supports for students who have experienced trauma, these programs have separately available free training online:
CBITS (Secondary Tier 2/3 Support, therapeutic/clinical approach)
Bounce Back (Elementary Tier 2/3 Support, therapeutic/clinical approach)
SSET (Ages 10-14, Teachers and School Counselors, non-clinical)
 Registration for WaKIDS trainings is now open!
WaKIDS 101 is the one-time asynchronous online training required for all kindergarten teachers new to WaKIDS, Transitional Kindergarten and certificated special education teachers who provide instruction to kindergarten children with disabilities. This training is self-paced and takes approximately 12 hours to complete. Participants will have approximately two weeks from the start date of the online session to complete the course and an optional Interrater Reliability (IRR). Teachers must successfully complete WaKIDS 101 in order to administer WaKIDS.
The Introduction to WaKIDS for District and School Administrators Course is designed for district and school administrators, including principals, assistant principals, early learning coordinators and district office administrators. This three-hour asynchronous course provides contextual information for the three components of WaKIDS (Family Connection, Early Learning Collaboration, and the Whole-child Assessment), as well an overview on how to leverage MyTeachingStrategies® report functionalities to support teachers, data collection, and analysis.
The WaKIDS Refresher Course is a five-hour, self-paced asynchronous course designed for kindergarten teachers, Transitional Kindergarten teachers, certificated special education teachers who provide instruction to kindergarten children with disabilities who have previously completed WaKIDS 101 but wish to refresh their knowledge. This five-hour online course offers a light review of Family Connection, Early Learning Collaboration, and components of a high-quality full-day kindergarten classroom. The WaKIDS Refresher Course offers a deeper exploration into the Whole-child Assessment, collecting and leveling documentation, and leveraging components of MyTeachingStrategies®. Teachers who complete the WaKIDS Refresher Course will receive five clock hours.
The WaKIDS for Support Staff is a course designed for any staff, including paraprofessionals, specialists, counselors, librarians, and therapists, who provide supports and services to kindergarten students. This course will introduce participants to WaKIDS and provide them with the tools to support general education classroom teachers in collecting documentation of student learning. More on this course coming soon!
All trainings are now open for registration and they are available here.
End-of-Year Account Clean-Up At the end of every school year, Teaching Strategies®, the WaKIDS assessment vendor, clears the data from the online assessment tool, MyTeachingStrategies®. Current year data is only retained in the MyTeachingStrategies® system until end of June. That means any data that you would like to be saved from this year should be downloaded. Make sure to safely and securely store children’s assessment data in your system so you may go back for other purposes such as research, analysis, programming, etc. June 30th is the last day to complete this task and starting July 1st, the new school year in their system begins!
Also, please help us keep a clean database of user accounts. Currently, there is a large number of users with multiple user accounts. We have completed our first round of the cleanup process by reaching out to users with multiple accounts and will continue with the second and third rounds to achieve a cleaner database and a more efficient work process. Please disable any user accounts that will not be needed next year, including accounts belonging to teachers, principals, and district administrators.
Year-End Clean-Up Action Items for WaKIDS
Here are some actions that District Assessment Coordinators should undertake between now and the beginning of the new school year:
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Suggested Time
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Action Items
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June
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Download any 2020-21 WaKIDS data from MyTeachingStrategies®
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June
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1st round of account clean-up
- Disable accounts for those who will not be teaching kindergarten next year
- Disable accounts for those who will not be administrators
- Provide administrator access for those who will be administrators
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June
July
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Remove any classes in MyTeachingStrategies® for those who will not be teaching kindergarten next year
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July
August September
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Ensure teachers who are new to kindergarten take WaKIDS 101 training before the school starts
- Kindergarten teachers
- Transitional Kindergarten teachers
- Special education teachers who provide instruction to kindergarten students
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July
August, September
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Encourage administrators who are new to take the WaKIDS Administrators training before the start of school
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July
August September
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Encourage support staff who are new to take the before the start of school
- Paraprofessionals
- Specialists
- Librarians
- Counselors
- Coaches
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August
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2nd round of account clean-up
Email wakids@k12.wa.us and request account transfers for teachers and administrators transferring in
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August, September
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Create classes and import students into MyTeachingStrategies®
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August September
October
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Submit requests for child record transfers in WAMS
The last day to request transfers is 10/29/2021
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September, October
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Ensure late hires take the WaKIDS 101 training
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Building on the success of the Family Voice Affinity Group, the Preschool Development Grant Transition Team has launched a series of conversations with families.
DCYF ECEAP Transitions and Inclusion and OSPI Special Education Inclusionary Practices listened to Washington State Association of Head Start and ECEAP Parent Ambassadors as they related their experiences with transitions into kindergarten and their hopes and dreams for their children in early learning and beyond. These conversations will continue regularly in 2021 to guide our exploration of best practices in transitions.
OSPI Special Education engages Open Doors for Multicultural Families and Partnerships for Action, Voices for Empowerment (PAVE) and will learn from the families’ experiences with transitions from birth to kindergarten and beyond.
In addition, OSPI and DCYF aim to engage migrant families in districts receiving Migrant Education and Migrant Preschool funding, supported by OSPI Migrant Education, ESD 105, ESD 123, NCESD, and NWESD.
The PDG Transitions Teams includes representatives of the OSPI Office of Native Education and DCYF Tribal ECEAP and the Head Start Collaboration Office. The team will build work currently in progress with the Office of Native Education.
The questions for gathering family stories are currently:
- What are your hopes and dreams for your child as they go to preschool or kindergarten?
- What are your fears and challenges?
- What does success look like for your child?
Please contact Gretchen Stahr Breunig at gretchen.stahrbreunig@k12.wa.us, Mari Taylor at mari.taylor@dcyf.wa.gov, Shandy Abrahamson at shandy.abrahamson@k12.wa.us, or Julie Dean at Julie.dean@k12.wa.us with any questions or ideas on engaging families and learning about best practices in transitions.
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As Transitional Kindergarten has existed only a few years, OSPI and DCYF continue to learn from early adopters. In 2020-21, CEDARS data indicates that 24 school districts offer Transitional Kindergarten in 39 school buildings serving approximately 664 four-year-old children.
OSPI and DCYF have supported a mini-grant scaffolding quality and best practice in Transitional Kindergarten in nine school districts since December 2020 with a last report due in June 2021. Districts implementing this mini-grant include the following: Colville School District (NEWESD 101), Clarkston School District (ESD 123), Kiona-Benton School District (ESD 123), North Beach School District (ESD 113), Sedro-Woolley School District (NWESD 189), Selah School District (ESD 105), Skamania School District (ESD 112), Vancouver School District (ESD 112), and Walla Walla School District (ESD 123).
This competitive implementation grant provided districts with the following support from FP 101:
- Funding to purchase Creative Curriculum®, including training and coaching for Transitional Kindergarten teachers in one classroom.
- Up to $3,600 to offset teacher release time for professional development.
- Up to $5,000 to purchase developmentally appropriate materials for indoors and outdoors.
- Community of Practice to support principals and district administrators with best practice in implementing Five Pillars.
OSPI is currently summarizing lessons learned from this implementation grant, including DCYF Head Start and ECEAP Director interviews to learn the impact and efficacy of shared recruitment and enrollment, and lessons learned about providing remote, hybrid, and full-time classroom learning environments with Creative Curriculum for Preschoolers®.
OSPI just released results of the second phase of TK Partners in Transition - a competitive planning grant for districts implementing TK for the first time. The focus of this planning grant is to provide support with shared recruitment and enrollment, hiring practices to reflect racial and ethnic backgrounds of the highest poverty schools in Schoolwide Improvement Status, and schools making significant progress in increasing the percentage of preschool students in Inclusionary Practices Placement Data in Least Restrictive Environments.
Administrators will complete an asynchronous pdEnroller TK Administrator Academy to support best practices implementing the Five Pillars including all three components of WaKIDS: Family Connection, Early Learning Collaboration, and the whole-child assessment with GOLD®. OSPI applies lessons learned from Phase 1 to support Phase 2 districts: Auburn School District (PSESD), Cascade School District (NCESD 171), Monroe School District (NWESD 189), Oakville School District (CRESD 113), Othello School District (ESD 123), Pasco (ESD 123), Quincy (NCESD 171), and Rochester School District (CRESD 113).
If you have questions about these mini-grants or other TK support, please contact Gretchen Stahr Breunig, Kindergarten Transition Specialist at gretchen.stahrbreunig@k12.wa.us.
August 3 – August 4 – August 5 | 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Zoom Conference | Closed Captioning Provided
Clock hours and STARS hours will be available
FREE
Who should attend?
• PreK – 3rd Grade educators
• Teaching artists
• Educational leaders and administrators
Why attend the Arts Uplift! Conference?
• Strengthen your tools to integrate arts instruction and culturally responsive teaching methods
• Learn about Social Emotional Learning (SEL) frameworks for your daily work
• Grow your own personal creativity and wellness practices
Visit arts.wa.gov/arts-uplift to register or to learn more!
Conference Partners
Alondra Mendoza, Administrative Assistant for Early Learning and WaKIDS OSPI: 360-725-6161 | Email: alondra.mendoza@k12.wa.us or WaKIDS@k12.wa.us
Yoona Park, WaKIDS Assessment Specialist OSPI: 360-725-6180 | Email: yoona.park@k12.wa.us
Gretchen Stahr Breunig, Kindergarten Transition Specialist OSPI: 360-764-0445 | Email: gretchen.stahrbreunig@k12.wa.us
Karma Hugo, Director of Early Learning OSPI: 360-725-6153 | Email: karma.hugo@k12.wa.us
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ALL STUDENTS PREPARED FOR POST-SECONDARY PATHWAYS, CAREERS, AND CIVIC ENGAGEMENT.
Led by State Superintendent Chris Reykdal, OSPI oversees K-12 public education in Washington state. Our mission is to provide funding, resources, tools, data and technical assistance that enable educators to ensure students succeed in our public schools, are prepared to access post-secondary training and education, and are equipped to thrive in their careers and lives.
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