St Mary's Early Childhood Center

FAMILY ENGAGEMENT: St. Mary's Child Center provides a family engagement program for the families of our preschool students. All families in the program are welcome to participate. We offer family activities through the year. Families meet with Educators and Staff to interact in the centers and learn more about what is happening in the classrooms. A large snack or meal is provided during this time. We work with families year-round to assist in finding resources and necessary services. The program aspect works to assist the family as a whole.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: The Professional Development Program provides professional development opportunities for community educators. The focus areas are the Educational Philosophy from Reggio Emilia, Italy and Applied Educational Neuroscience research and practices for behavioral health. Research indicates life changing, positive outcomes for children who are involved in high quality early learning programs. The intention of the Professional Development Program is to share practices that can improve program quality for other programs and therefore, improve outcomes for young children served in all schools. The staff provides seminars, tours and classroom internships. We present at national and local conferences and provide work force development to individual programs as designed by the specific program's needs.

PRESCHOOL CURRICULUM: Over 150 children attend St. Mary's Child Center daily. We provide a low adult to child ratio (1:7) to ensure that we can focus on the social and emotional, as well as cognitive and physical, development of the children. The high-quality curriculum mitigates the risks to development and promotes school readiness to help the children reach their potential and be successful in school and later life. SMECC uses the COR Advantage assessment system to evaluate the progress of individual children. This whole child assessment allows teachers to view children's development through play and naturally occurring activities. The staff at St. Mary's analyzed the results of the COR Advantage assessments that were completed for 69 of the five-year olds that left our program to enter kindergarten in May 2023. Children were assessed at both the beginning and end of the school year through interactions within the classroom environments. The interactions were recorded to determine the level of development shown. The overall growth throughout the school year across all domains averaged over 16%. Areas with the greatest gains included science with more than 20% and math with almost 29%. It is expected that children living in poverty enter kindergarten at a 3- or 4-year development level.