Scenario 1, KidExplorers After visiting KidExplorers, I learned that the teachers in the school go out of their way to make sure they are always available to parents. At least one teacher in every room is available either in the morning or the afternoon, so they can briefly discuss any concerns families have. They are also available to talk in the middle of the day, if the parents can call the center. The teachers in the Pre-K classroom also sometimes write a newsletter with pictures of big activities or projects they do with the children. The older classrooms (Preschool and Pre-K) also invite parents to come and visit with them (reading and sometimes having lunch with the class on special days). The younger classrooms normally have special events (children’s birthdays or other celebrations) and try to answer parent questions during the day. These classrooms provide a daily sheet every day, but the teachers say that the parents don’t read them. The administrator for the center is the owner and director, Mrs. Mary. Mrs. Mary has been working in childcare for almost 30 years. She started as a Toddler teacher and says that having family events and engaging parents is very important to the center. There are nearly 50 families in the center that serves infants through 5th grade. The center has a Fall festival, Christmas events, and a Summer Fair. Families come to all of the events and enjoy games, snacks, and other “fun things”. Mrs. Mary also said that she is responsible for meeting any family that is thinking about enrolling in the center. If they call, she will answer all of their questions and ask them to come in to pay their deposit and go over the Parent Handbook. Every new family starts on the first of the month (or the closest day to the first) and because they don’t always know what to bring to the center, she will give them a list of supplies and the rules of the center, printed out. Depending on the age of the children, she will ask parents to take their child to the classroom. Otherwise, she will take the child to their new room and introduce them to the teachers and other children until the child can go without crying or fussing. She does this so that parents don’t get caught in the class in the mornings when they drop off. She did mention that the parents can talk to the teachers when they pick up and sometimes, they call in the middle of the day to check on their children. Mrs. Mary has made connections with community helpers and they come to visit the center often – dentists come and talk to the preschoolers about brushing their teeth, police and fire fighters come and let the children look at their vehicles when the classrooms are talking about vehicles or community helpers. There was a time when the library bus would come by and let the Pre-K class check out books, but that lost funding. Some summers, the School Age students will take trips to the library that isn’t too far from the center and read the books they get in the afternoons.
There isn’t a parent advisory board at KidExplorers, Mrs. Mary says that she takes suggestions from parents if they have issues with anything that is happening in the center. Every once in awhile, she will email all of the parents and let them know if something is changing like teachers in the classroom or once, they had to stop using one of the playgrounds so that they could get a new climbing structure. If there is an emergency in the center, Mrs. Mary said that they follow their Emergency Preparedness Response plan, which says that parents will be called by the classroom teachers and asked to pick their children up, unless they are on lock-down. If they are on lock-down, families will be told where their children are (if they move locations) and will be called when its safe to pick the children up. She mentioned that one other person in the center has been trained on the EPR plan and has been here for years, Ms. Michelle. Mrs. Mary said that she would be happy to get some ideas on other ways to involve families in the center – she stated that she wasn’t sure how families would take new practices, but she would listen to them when I shared them with her