Forum Administrator YaBB Administrator Posts: 88	End-of–year progress reports for Planning Grants 09/23/08 at 13:58:25   Please use this thread for End-of–year progress reports for Planning Grants.         Use the "reply" button to post your report to this thread.         Thanks!
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Cathy_Weis YaBB Newbies Posts: 5

Elmbrook Reply #1 - 05/18/09 at 09:08:21   Our year wraps up with many exciting changes that we are ready to implement next fall. We finished a big year in staff development. I finally achieved my goal of having our district host an outstanding LINKS training that we all participated in, thanks to the grant money! We also had several opportunities to discuss assessment practices and tools as we evaluated our entire evaluation and IEP Process. We began playgroups in a classroom in the district with EC kiddos and typically dveloping peers.  I am happy to report that the group has left the building and now meets at various homes. It is amazing to see our kids in action in their own homes and with their friends. Next year, we plan to expand into the the library story hours, both public library and our local school buildings! We also have banded together with our Parent Network to host a variety of topics of interest to the community with preschoolers. Our community providers will be included in this and will earn credit hours!! We have made progress!!

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sdonahoe YaBB Moderator Posts: 18	Re: End-of–year progress reports for Planning Gran Reply #2 - 05/18/09 at 09:30:58   Inspiring report--and it sounds like you are having fun too - Keep up the great work!
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jfree YaBB Newbies Posts: 4

Marathon Reply #3 - 05/22/09 at 14:12:39   As a recipent of the planning grant our school district has been able to frame an idea of what we want in our district for young children.  We are utilizing the WMELS as a guide for planning and programming that will provide more continuity between special education, 4K and 5K students.  The grant has provided us with the opportunity to explore various curriculums, time to collaborate with teachers and administrators, initiate more parent interactions, and go on site visits.  We are also initiating various projects that will be ongoing and will strive to develop even better interactions between the school, parents and community.  Next year, and proceeding years we are looking forward to continuing discussions with our district's long range planning committee, continuing collaboration and professional development for staff and develop interactions with our community's family daycares and our county library.      We have had a busy but exciting year and are looking to next year to continue to work on what is best for young children.

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tpaavola YaBB Newbies Posts: 2

Cochrane Fountain City Reply #4 - 05/28/09 at 08:36:12   As a planning grant recipient this past year, we have completed a productive year.  Our planning group met 5 times, we conducted 2 professional development seminars in CSEFL which were very well attended by persons both within and from outside of our local area and were led by two excellent trainers, have made plans for next year to implement play group activities coordinated with our participating partners, and held a parent/child night recently which emphasized the benefits of gardening with children to help develop communication skills, which was also well attended. We are looking forward to implementing a much more ambitious plan for next year with our family night/play group activities and more frequent meetings with more involvement from other areas of the community.  Our parent surveys indicated a strong desire for play groups in the area and we hope with continued support from the grant we will be able to continue establishing an increasingly growing cooperation between home, agencies, school and daycare providers.

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Cashton YaBB Newbies Posts: 4

Cashton School District Reply #5 - 06/14/09 at 21:20:32   This year the Cashton School District facilitated three meetings with our preschool advisory council.  Our discussions focused on implementing weekly playgroups for three and four year olds in fall.  Our ultimate goal is for IEP teams to have the opportunity to consider the playgroup setting as an option for providing special education services for early childhood children.  We gathered information from neighboring communities regarding playgroups and visited one at the Family Resource Center.  We had hoped to conduct the playgroups in conjuction with story time at our community library but because of some barriers we are moving ahead to host the playgroups at our elementary school.   We also attended the LINKS training and WMELS training which included an overview of the Creative Curriculum.  We implemented Creative Curriculum in the 4K and EC programs this year.  We were also able to purchase some parent resource materials to add to our lending library.

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Kaye_Yahn YaBB Newbies Posts: 3

Hamilton Reply #6 - 06/23/09 at 10:20:31   Our Preschool Options Committee membership was enhanced this year by the addition of regular education teachers of 4K. As a professional learning community we read and discussed books, including Coaching Families and Colleagues in Early Childhood.  The highlight of our year was the planning and presentation of an inservice for day care employees within the Hamilton School District boundaries entitled, “Learning and Language through Play.”  This conference-style evening provided three workshops for each of the 41 participants. We worked cooperatively with committee members from a day care to be able to provide participants with credits from “The Registry”. Evaluations of the workshop were overwhelmingly positive, with the suggestion that each of the sessions could have been the focus of the entire evening. We provided a light supper to all attendees, compliments of one of our parent committee members. This was so positively received, that the committee is planning to hold two more of these workshops with one per semester in the 2009-10 school year. We also created a parent resource file regarding topics that parents and day care providers can utilize. Through visits to day cares and homes within the district, we have strengthened ties between home, school, and the community. We are appreciative of the grant funding that allowed us to experience all of the above and to collaborate with the parents and families of our community.

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Karen_Henry YaBB Newbies Posts: 3

Altoona Reply #7 - 06/27/09 at 13:07:31   Altoona School District End of Year Report 2008-9   The grant facilitated collaborative communication between school district staff, the Altoona Children’s Council, the community, Head Start and four other community partners.  Committees have established formalized frameworks and logistics for increasing preschool and service delivery options as community-based 4 year-old kindergarten is implemented beginning in the 2009-10 school year. Arrangements have been made for identified Early Childhood Special Education children to receive services in a variety of least restrictive environments,   The district Early Childhood Special Education Teacher and Speech/Language Pathologist have built relationships with these community partners, and have planned programming.  They also were driving forces in the committee that formalized mechanisms for early and ongoing collaboration and support such as: coaching, requests for assistance, pre-referral options, and the extension of a collaborative problem solving model that is used K-8 in the district.   Altoona’s collaborative vision was enhanced and solidified as several district staff, preschool/child care center staff, and the community have participated in staff development on developmentally appropriate curriculum, social emotional development, and the WMELS (Wisconsin Early Learning Standards).  The school board and community have provided input and have been informed throughout the interagency planning process.

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Ruth_Voight YaBB Newbies Posts: 4

Monticello Reply #8 - 06/30/09 at 10:51:56   Monticello School District has taken advantage of several professional development opportunities.  Staff has participated in a family night training and sponsored a very successful family night in March.  Three teachers and an administrator attended the LINKS Training  in spring.  This workshop was both informative and inspirational-we returned ready to really look at curriculum and mode of delivery.  In August the ECSE teacher and will attend a WI Model Early Learning Standards.  Our KG teachers and our OT were also excited to acquire information regarding the standards.  We posted a general announcement regarding the meeting in the local newspapers and school newsletter.  We also sent personal invitations to agencies, families and daycare providers.  We had a representative from each of these groups attend: 0-3, Head Start, local daycare, and parents in addition to school staff.  We will meet again in fall to share information and address Child Find activities in late winter.  The major accomplishment of the project this year has been the acquisition of knowledge regarding best practice and options.  Our goal for next year will be to share that knowledge with our community council and  to increase community awareness regarding early childhood development by revising our child find activities and by sponsoring a quarterly family activity night.   Ruth R. Voight Pupil Services/Special Education Director Monticello Schools Monticello, WI  53570   Phone: 608-938-4194 ext 237 Fax: 608-938-1062

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mpelletier YaBB Newbies Posts: 1

School District of Ashland Reply #9 - 06/30/09 at 11:09:21   The 2008-2009 school year was an exciting year in the School District of Ashland for preschool options.  We were in the 2nd year of our planning grant and many activities occurred.  These included in-service training with Bad River Head Start, Family Forum Head Start, and school staff on preschool options with Mary Joslin and Sue Albert in October, 2008.  Additionally Mary consulted with us via phone to answer questions and concerns and returned with an on-site visit in February 2009 to provide training to BRHS, FFHS, and school district staff on communication, roles and responsibilities with an effective preschool options program.  Sue Erickson and Stephanie St. Germaine of CESA #12 have provided excellent and ongoing support for our program.  As a result of our review of the preschool options process we altered our delivery of service in December, 2008 for our ECSE program to a 3 day a week program @ Lake Superior Primary School and 2 days a week of itinerant service to the community by the EC teacher.  We have an engaged and functioning pre-school options committee with plans for our next meeting in late August, 2009. - John Eyerly, Director of Pupil Services

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Jeff_Rehberg YaBB Newbies Posts: 1

Beaver Dam Unified Reply #10 - 07/08/09 at 13:54:02   The 2008-2009 brought about some big changes in our delivery of Early Childhood services here at Prairei View School in Beaver Dam. For the first time, we placed young EEN students alongside tyopically developing peers in district 4K settings. This greatly improved our environmental coding. Praogramming for three and young four year olds with disabilitiesalso changed. In previous years, we offered only segregated four half day per week classes. This year we offered a contunuum of services ranging from itinerant to fully self contained EC.  Changes in our school programs were articulated to the community through many meetings as well as information forums.   Next year, we hope to be able to work with our YMCA to deliver a co-taught preschool option for three year old children.   Thanks for all your help giving the staff at Prairie View School a common understanding of Preschool options and the importance of IEP linkage.

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jgreget YaBB Newbies Posts: 2

Medford Area Public School District Reply #11 - 07/10/09 at 15:06:53   The Medford Area Public School District and Taylor County Early Childhood Sub-Committee has had a successful year in the area of early education.  This preschool planning mini-grant has helped facilitate the planning and implementation of successful programs during the 08-09 school year and also setting things up for the 09-10 school year.       Regular and special edcuation staff attended a Preschool Options and the IEP training.  This information along with follow-up discussions and planning time has helped the school district, families, and community prepare for implementing a Preschool Options model for children with disabilities starting in the 09-10 school year.       Parental outreach activities also called Families Being Involved workshops were held on Early Release Days during the 08-09 school year.  We held four of these workshops for children and parents.  Attendance was okay, but we will look towards next year to increase attendance.     We held a very successful Week of the Young Child in Taylor County.  This included a beach party theme, potluck dinner and dance that featured over 200 children, siblings, and parents at our Medford Area Elementary School.  Children brought their beach blankets to sit on and the dance featured beach songs by a local DJ.  Other activities included: posters downtown, local theatre offered discounted movies and popcorn for families, week of the young child proclamation from the Medford Mayor and Stetsonville Chairperson, dress up days, pizza night for Head Start Families, Child Care Referral and Resources placemats throughout area restaurants.  There were many other activities held throughout this week in Taylor County.     A Birth to Three interagency agreement was developed and agreed upon by Taylor County Birth to Three and Taylor County Schools (Gilman, Rib Lake, and Medford).  This has already been started to be implemented which helps provide a smooth transition between Birth to Three and into school.       Taylor County Playgroup had another successful year with better than ever attendance for children and parents.  This group is a great collaboration between Parent Resource Center, UW Extension, Birth to Three, and the school district.

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nitscric YaBB Newbies Posts: 2

Two Rivers School District Reply #12 - 07/13/09 at 09:37:33   The Two Rivers School District introduced an integrated 4K program for special needs 4 year-old students during the 2008-09 school year.  The integrated program was in one setting but had a good mix of SwD and non-SwD 4-year-old children.  In past years, the early childhood special needs program was a self-contained program in one of our public schools.  Students with speech only needs were placed in all of our community partner schools and speech services were provided at the sites.  It is our goal to further expand inclusion of 4K students with disabilities in the various 4K sites and to re-define how early childhood services are provided in the district.  Some issues need to be addressed in regard to the delivery of OT and PT services.     Staff develpment was critical in the expansion of our pre-school options.  Staff development offerings included training in: Wisconsin Model Early Learning Standards, Conscious Discipline, Creative Learning, Behavior By Design, I am moving, I am Learning, Creating a Developmentally Appropriate 4K Classroom, LINKS/Understanding Disabilities, Understanding Poverty, and attendance at the Preserving Early Childhood Conference.  The Two Rivers School District worked with the Manotowoc School District to share staff development activities.     The Two Rivers School District has just concluded its first year of 4K programming.  The first year was viewed as a huge success, but much work still needs to occur in regard to pre-school options.  There is a good base in place but some systemic changes need to be explored, discussed and implemented.

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tbrecklin YaBB Newbies Posts: 2

Brown Deer School Board Reply #13 - 07/20/09 at 11:16:15   Our staff participated in professional development workshops during the second half of the 2008-09 school year. These included an EC Form, WMELS training, and a workshop on the Myths and Realities Surrounding Second Language in Youngest Learners.  We are proud to say that one of our 4K teachers, Brittanny Schueller, was named as a 2009 Teacher of the Year by the Betty Brinn Children’s Museum.  The museum honors an early childhood and an elementary grade teacher who demonstrate a special commitment and dedication to the principles of hands-on education. The award reflects the Museum’s commitment to early learning and is endorsed by the Wisconsin Education Association Council and the Wisconsin Early Childhood Association.  Mrs. Schueller was nominated for this award by one of our 4K parents.

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sdonahoe YaBB Moderator Posts: 18	Re: End-of–year progress reports for Planning Gran Reply #14 - 07/20/09 at 12:00:17   Congratulations to your district.  That is the type of model that we all benefit from.  Thanks for sharing that.
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