Collaboration with Community Colleges and Universities
SETA Head Start has unique and extraordinary community collaboration with the local community colleges and university. Through the collaboration a variety of support is afforded to groups of children and individual early learners. These supports are:
Jump Start: A local college wrote and was awarded a grant to provide one-on-one literacy support to specific children Children selected for the support are identified by an assessment developed and monitored by the National Jump Start program.
America Reads: College students, who have a specific interest and are taking appropriate classes, are assigned to learning centers where they provide literacy support to children in the classroom. That support may be reading to groups of children, assisting the teaching staff in developing and implementing unique literacy activities, taking story dictation from children, setting up literacy area, etc.
America Counts: College students, who have a specific interest and are taking appropriate classes, are assigned to learning centers where they provide math support to children. That support may be playing counting games with children, play with blocks while working on spatial relationships, or any variety of activities that assists young learners in developing math concepts.
Service Learning: Service learning is a program that was conceived to be a vehicle to get young people more involved in their communities through more than just volunteer work. The thought was they they could learn how various occupations benefit the communities too. Students enroll in Child Development 30 and then are place at various Head Start sites throughout our program. They meet monthly with college staff to discuss how the internship is going. The Head Start Early Learning Centers benefit by the additional support from the students in a classroom.
Substitutes: One of the most exciting benefits of the college collaboration is using students who are in need of field study work or are interested in working in a Head Start classroom. A variety of schedules are arranged around the student's class hours as well as the students' convenience to a specific geographic location. Some learning centers are used as "hubs" where the students report for the day and either remain at their assigned "hub", or are dispatched to a learning center that is in need of a substitute for the day. Students gain practical experience in working with young children, and SETA Head Start has a list of people available and interested in working in a child development setting. This collaboration has enabled SETA Head Start to solve a large and difficult problem: the need for substitute teachers each day.
Family Game Night: In order to facilitate family togetherness, literacy, numeracy and social development, the Family Service Workers have developed a check out library of games which families can borrow and play together. Each site has a variety of games that are geared for preschool aged children, and parents are encouraged to sit down and play the games as a family. The families who have taken advantage of the games have told us that they enjoy shutting off the T.V. and just sitting with their children and spending time together.
"For children, play is as natural as breathing - and as necessary."
- Mimi Brodsky Chenfeld
SETA Head Start has unique and extraordinary community collaboration with the local community colleges and university. Through the collaboration a variety of support is afforded to groups of children and individual early learners. These supports are:
America Reads: College students, who have a specific interest and are taking appropriate classes, are assigned to learning centers where they provide literacy support to children in the classroom. That support may be reading to groups of children, assisting the teaching staff in developing and implementing unique literacy activities, taking story dictation from children, setting up literacy area, etc.
America Counts: College students, who have a specific interest and are taking appropriate classes, are assigned to learning centers where they provide math support to children. That support may be playing counting games with children, play with blocks while working on spatial relationships, or any variety of activities that assists young learners in developing math concepts.
Service Learning: Service learning is a program that was conceived to be a vehicle to get young people more involved in their communities through more than just volunteer work. The thought was they they could learn how various occupations benefit the communities too. Students enroll in Child Development 30 and then are place at various Head Start sites throughout our program. They meet monthly with college staff to discuss how the internship is going. The Head Start Early Learning Centers benefit by the additional support from the students in a classroom.
Substitutes: One of the most exciting benefits of the college collaboration is using students who are in need of field study work or are interested in working in a Head Start classroom. A variety of schedules are arranged around the student's class hours as well as the students' convenience to a specific geographic location. Some learning centers are used as "hubs" where the students report for the day and either remain at their assigned "hub", or are dispatched to a learning center that is in need of a substitute for the day. Students gain practical experience in working with young children, and SETA Head Start has a list of people available and interested in working in a child development setting. This collaboration has enabled SETA Head Start to solve a large and difficult problem: the need for substitute teachers each day.
Family Game Night: In order to facilitate family togetherness, literacy, numeracy and social development, the Family Service Workers have developed a check out library of games which families can borrow and play together. Each site has a variety of games that are geared for preschool aged children, and parents are encouraged to sit down and play the games as a family. The families who have taken advantage of the games have told us that they enjoy shutting off the T.V. and just sitting with their children and spending time together.