Posted on February 9, 2018 at 2:13 pm by Meghan Revolinsky
By: Natalya Jones
The teachers at the Belle Haven Child Elementary school hosted a collaborative meeting with the lead teachers of the Belle Have Child Development Center. The purpose of the meeting was to share thoughts, exchange ideas and help each program learn what happens at the individual facilities. As the Child Development Center focuses on kindergarten readiness, the elementary school teachers were able to provide insight and suggestions on what types of skill building the preschool teachers should focus on in their classrooms so that children are most successful after leaving preschool. The teachers of both programs discussed some of the ongoing challenges in identifying behavioral and learning disabilities as well as what strategies have worked in various situations and the support systems that are in place in each of the sites. The groups invited each other to come and observe their classrooms during instruction time and identified themselves as support systems for each other.
The Belle Haven Child Development Center graduates roughly 60 children from the preschool program each year. Of these 60 children, half of them will attend schools in the Ravenswood City School District where Belle Haven Elementary is located. This collaborative meeting was the beginning of future working relationships between the two facilities as a way of ensuring that the transition between preschool and kindergarten would be as seamless as possible. By working together and starting at the preschool level, the number of children requiring remedial services in elementary school should decrease which benefits everyone in the long run. Meetings such as these have been proven successful for community partnerships and ensures that children are indeed ready for kindergarten
For more information regarding the Ravenswood City School District, please visit the District webpage.
For more information regarding the Belle Haven Child Development Center, please visit the BHCDC webpage.
