Meet Central Mass PDC Training Specialist Jody Figuerido, Ph.D.
As early educators, we’re well aware of the chaos COVID-19 caused in our profession. Many of us are still grappling with pandemic-related financial shortfalls, staffing shortages, and an increase in challenging behavior among the children in our classrooms or programs—along with the stress such difficulties bring.
In her work as the Training Specialist for the Central Massachusetts StrongStart Professional Development Center (PDC), and as owner and president of the Institute for Education and Professional Development, Jody Figuerido, Ph.D., has observed these struggles in real-time and was concerned about their effect on young children’s learning and development as well as the impact on the educators.
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Meet Northeast PDC Coach Shauna Trick
Shauna Trick is a nurturer by nature, which is why she was drawn to a career in ECE. For 25 years she has supported the growth and development of countless infants, toddlers, preschoolers, kindergarteners, and school-age children in a range of settings. For many years, Trick has also channeled her love for encouraging others to reach their potential by mentoring other educators, including as the lead coach at the StrongStart Northeast Professional Development Center (PDC) since 2021.
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Meet Metro Boston PDC coach Clarence Little
With an ECE career that spans nearly 50 years, Clarence Little has a wealth of experience on which to draw as a StrongStart Professional Development Center (PDC) coach, Professional Learning Community (PLC) facilitator, and facilitator of Leading for Change, our professional development program that trains program administrators, educators, and family child care providers on how to lead for change and quality improvement in their practice, program, or in the field.
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Developmental Monitoring and Screening Week Begins April 12
We measure young children’s cognitive, social, and physical development with specific milestones, e.g., a baby should be able to hold their head up when on their tummy by 2 months, make cooing sounds by 4 months, and recognize familiar people by 6 months. A delay in these and other areas can be a sign of a developmental problem. The earlier developmental delays are diagnosed the sooner children can receive the interventions they need to thrive.
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Apply to become a facilitator for Instructional Leadership for Continuous Improvement in ECE
Become certified to lead a new course developed by UMass Boston’s Institute for Early Education Leadership and Innovation and scaled through the StrongStart Professional Development Centers. The course, Instructional Leadership for Continuous Improvement in ECE, is part of the new Early Education Quality Improvement through Instructional Leadership (EQIIL) program funded by the Department of Early Education and Care.
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StrongStart PDC Leadership Coaching Institute successfully launched
Created and facilitated by the StrongStart Coaching Committee, leadership coaching training was offered to all coaches who work with early childhood leaders and educators through the StrongStart PDCs. The training was developed to support coaches in the implementation of the PDC coaching model within all early education programs in Massachusetts. The strengths-based institute was delivered in five sessions, with equity and continuous quality improvement at the center of all learning and training.
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Congrats to the graduates of our Instructional Leadership for Continuous Improvement in Early Education class
Congratulations to the graduates of our Instructional Leadership for Continuous Improvement in Early Education course!
This free course is designed to help small teams from programs (e.g., a director, curriculum coach, and a lead teacher working collaboratively) build capacity for creating the conditions that enable continuous learning and improvement and facilitate job-embedded professional learning.
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Pilot program to provide child care vouchers for early educators
The Department of Early Education and Care has launched a pilot program to provide immediate access to child care financial assistance vouchers to income eligible staff working in licensed early education and care programs.
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New eLearning course available!
The new self-paced eLearning course — Introduction to Curriculum Planning — is now available in the course catalog on the StrongStart Learning Management System. This is a free one-hour course available in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Chinese.
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Support for reopening—and remaining open
Starting this month, the the StrongStart Professional Development Centers (PDC) are offering support to programs that are reopening (or are already open) in three ways:
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Professional Learning Communities offered by StrongStart Professional Development Centers
As center-based, out of school time, and family child care programs prepare to reopen, educators, owners, and administrators are now faced with meeting new needs related to the COVID-19 pandemic. In the coming weeks, the StrongStart Professional Development Centers will offer in-depth learning and on-going support to programs through Professional Learning Communities (PLC). For more information about upcoming PLCs, please read on.
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Temporary suspension of ECE programs extended through June 29
At his daily briefing yesterday on the COVID-19 pandemic in Massachusetts, Gov. Charlie Baker announced that all ECE programs in the Commonwealth, except for designated emergency childcare providers, must remain closed through June 29 (The full text of Baker’s comments on the extension are below.)
EEC Commissioner Samantha Aigner-Treworgy, who joined Baker at the briefing, emphasized that the extension was in the best “public health interest” of the Commonwealth’s families and frontline workforce, in addition to providing time to look ahead “and align the reopening of childcare with the reopening of employment across the state.” (Read the full text of Aigner-Treworgy remarks at the end of this post.)
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Meet an emergency provider: Jessica Teixeira
When Gov. Charlie Baker suspended the operation of all non-emergency child care programs in mid-March, Jessica Teixeira’s heart broke for the families she serves in her Revere ECE program, Imagination Station Early Learning Center. Many of them include first responders. Teixeira is also married to a former first-responder. She was well aware that their already perilous work was about to get much riskier and didn’t want to compound their stress by leaving them without child care.
After talking it over with her husband, Teixeira decided, “I can’t close. There’s got to be something we can do to help these families.”
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Meet an emergency ECE provider: Dottie Williams
“My families and my community needed me to stay open. I never thought about shutting down,” says Dorothy (Dottie) Williams, of her decision to remain open through the COVID-19 crisis as one of the state’s 500 emergency early education and child care providers.
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What you can do now
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting shutdown of early care and education (ECE) programs in Massachusetts and beyond, early education advocates and leaders are working to identify how this crisis is affecting the country’s early education ecosystem in order to shape effective ECE-related emergency responses and policy going forward. In the coming days and weeks there will no doubt be advocacy opportunities in which the voices of early educators will be critical in conveying to municipal elected officials and state and federal legislators the challenges that the early education sector will face in the short- and long-term. We’ll be updating this post regularly to keep you abreast of these opportunities and related news.
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Latest information on suspension of ECE programs, plus stay-at-home advisory
In case you missed it, we are sharing a summary of the most recent message from the Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care on the statewide suspension of early care and education programs in order to slow the spread of COVID-19. Also today, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health also issued a stay-at-home advisory for all residents of Massachusetts from Tuesday, March 24 at noon through Tuesday, April 7 at noon. Under this advisory, residents should “stay home and avoid unnecessary travel and other unnecessary activities during this two-week time period.”
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ECE programs to suspend operations March 23
Governor Baker announced today that all early care and education programs will close effective March 23 in response to the public health emergency in Massachusetts. This order covers both home- and center-based child care providers and programs and will be in effect through April 6.
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Employment opportunity for leadership coaches
The Institute for Early Education Leadership and Innovation is hiring 10 new coaches to deliver coaching services as part of its leadership coaching team at the Institute for Early Education Leadership and Innovation and its grant-funded projects with the MA Department of Early Education and Care, including professional development training for the state’s 9,000 licensed early care and education programs and 70,000 early educators.
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Online training continues!
Our in-person trainings have been cancelled through April 6. But professional development continues with online sessions. Below are three upcoming sessions that will be taught online. They are open to everyone in the state, regardless of your region.
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Updated coronavirus information MONDAY, MARCH 16, 2020
On Sunday, March 15, Gov. Baker issued new public health orders under the state’s covid-19 emergency declaration. Effective Tuesday, March 17, all public and private K-12 schools will be closed through April 6. Gov. Baker specifically exempted closure of childcare programs and noted that “EEC will prioritize the maintenance and expansion of childcare capacity serving front-line healthcare workers and first-responders across the state.”
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