PreschoolFirst supports Collin Community College Child Development Lab school Staff achieve NAEYC Accreditation

Director Janet Galantay and Assistant Director Barbara Batista shared their experience using PreschoolFirst as a resource during their NAEYC reaccreditation at the Collin Community College Child Development Center Lab School in Plano, TX during a phone interview with Kamna Seth, Senior Manager of Educational Services at The Source for Learning, Inc. – the creator of PreschoolFirst.

Kamna: What does achieving NAEYC Accreditation mean to you and your staff?

Janet & Barbara: This was our “re-accreditation.” However, it was our first time going through the process in the new system. It was very grueling. We feel a sense of accomplishment. Our teachers really know what it means to be accredited. We have a sense of pride about it and feel we have moved up many notches. We now also know which areas we have to work further.

Since we are based on a college campus we have students preparing for careers in the early childhood professions who come and observe our teachers, their experiences with us sets a bar for them. Therefore the level of quality required by the NAEYC accreditation sets a high bar.

Kamna: Did you use PreschoolFirst system during the NAEYC re-accreditation process? If you did, then how did you and your staff use the system while pursuing this process?

Janet & Barbara: Absolutely!!! We did use it! The alignment book saved so much time and gave us the evidence that we needed to show the assessor everything was in place. It had documentation for each NAEYC Accreditation standard. PreschoolFirst’s feature to communicate with parents was extremely helpful. When we showed her the program, the NAEYC assessor was amazed and it “blew her socks off!”

We have well-experienced and highly qualified teachers in our lab school - two of whom have Masters Degrees in Child Development. PreschoolFirst makes the job easier even for these “master” teachers, but we also feel that someone with less experience and without a degree can also use PreschoolFirst easily. Any teacher would benefit from PreschoolFirst.

We hired one of our former students as a teacher in our infant room at the same time we started the NAEYC reaccreditation process. As you may imagine, she felt very overwhelmed. PreschoolFirst was her saving grace. She is very thankful to have this system.

These days there is more emphasis on academics, assessments…so when we received word of our reaccredidation success we felt our efforts to maintain our philosophy of Developmentally Appropriate Practices was validated. We use a play-based assessment and curriculum and we have still been able to meet all the requirements. This has been possible by using PreschoolFirst.

Kamna: Any specific feature of PreschoolFirst that you think you couldn’t have done without during this process?

Janet & Barbara: The PreschoolFirst assessment tool! It supports our philosophy of naturalistic observations. We find it beneficial because the PreschoolFirst assessment tool can be used to observe infants, toddlers, and preschoolers… so there is continuity through our program. Without PreschoolFirst it would have been very difficult for us to meet NAEYC Accreditation Standard 4- Assessment of Child Progress.

We would also say that PreschoolFirst has helped us meet NAEYC Accreditation Standard 2- Curriculum. Using PreschoolFirst has helped enhance our curriculum. We are able to meet the needs of an individual child and needs of a whole group. We are thrilled to subscribe to this system.

Kamna: Do you use the PreschoolFirst parent component on a regular basis or did you just use this feature during the NAEYC reaccreditation process?

Janet & Barbara: We do print intake questionnaires to share with our new families. Teachers did train the parents on how to log in and use PreschoolFirst. Some parents use the system, but the majority of them are not using it as we would like to see them use it. Teachers do use the system to send notes to the parents at times.

Our staff prints PreschoolFirst’s conference reports to use during our parent-teacher conferences held twice a year. When we have any suspected special needs or when a parent comes to us with concerns about their child’s development we do use PreschoolFirst assessment tool as a way to reassure the parent or see if there are any red flags and then encourage the parent to go for a formal assessment.

Kamna: Did you think that the alignment document we provided was helpful?

Janet & Barbara: Yes, thank you! Thank you! Thank you! It was very easy to read. The tabs were helpful to find information we needed. We can’t think of anything to make this better.

Kamna: Is there something else PreschoolFirst could have done to help you in this process?

Janet & Barbara: Can’t really think of anything at this time. The alignment book was very helpful!
The feedback we received from the NAEYC told us our program had to work on social studies and science – but we can’t say that this somehow correlates to PreschoolFirst. We are, however, currently working on these areas.

Kamna: If down the road PreschoolFirst has a network of subscribers pursuing NAEYC Accreditation would you and your program like to be a part of it?

Janet & Barbara: Yes, we would love to be a part of it!

When the new standards were released in 2006, 6 local programs got together and the 6 representatives took each section to familiarize themselves with the new standards. We were amongst the first few programs to have achieved accreditation under the new system so there were no brains to pick. We will be glad to be a part of the network.

Kamna: Any final thoughts or suggestions on PreschoolFirst?

Janet & Barbara: Thank you again for the NAEYC alignment document!

One of our Toddler teachers has requested for an easy way to pull self-help skill activities. We know that they are there under different domains but if there is an easy way for teachers to identify these activities that will be great!

Occasionally, we have run into some technical glitches but PreschoolFirst has always resolved them very quickly.

Subscribers who are pursuing NAEYC Accreditation can contact Kamna Seth at kseth@sflinc.org if you are interested in receiving your copy of NAEYC-PreschoolFirst Alignment document.

If you have achieved NAEYC Accreditation we would love to hear from you about your experience!

Arlington Providers Sign Right Up!

It's the start of an all new PreschoolFirst-Arlington Family Child Care Provider Pilot. We'd like to share a few photos of the providers who signed up right at the Interest Meeting hosted by Dr. Cheryl Roberts earlier in February. Dr. Roberts will guide the participants through a one-year training program designed to teach them how to use the PreschoolFirst resource - and in the process - also learn even more about early childhood development.


"We are very excited to see a passion and an enthusiasm for learning in the group of caregivers who attended the meeting," said Margaret Hyer, Educational Services Coordinator at The Source for Learning, Inc. Participants will receive necessary equipment, internet connectivity as well as educational credits for their dedication.