The mission of the Monterey County Office of Education and Early Learning Program is to partner with the community to provide the highest quality early childhood education and comprehensive child and family services. They honor the diversity of their community and strive to be leaders in child and family development by delivering high-quality services based on community need. The goal is to prepare students with the skills needed for college and career readiness, overall student achievement, and lifelong learning. The program serves 708 children ages 3-5 years in partnership with school districts
Given the extreme challenges the pandemic brought to the program, the goal from day one was to continue providing children and families with the best quality education with the Frog Street curriculum via a distance learning program. Eventually, the teachers needed to figure out how to teach in children in person in accordance with the strict Covid guidelines decided by the CDC and State.
Shortly after the announcement came that the pandemic would shut down schools, the Early Learning Program Education Team gathered to brainstorm the possible ways in which they could continue delivering the Frog Street curriculum to children and families. They developed a Distance Learning Module that included the Frog Street curriculum themes and put it into practice. In addition, they developed educational kits that included weekly activities that incorporated Frog Street theme activities to communicate with parents in order to ensure parents were able to help teach their children from home. A total of 9,432 kits were distributed. They offered Zoom classes and phone calls for follow-up as well. Families read a total of 827 books virtually!
After a few weeks, they were able to reopen their centers, providing services to children in small groups and, eventually, they opened at full capacity. This brought another challenge, but this did not stop the educational team. Again, they gathered and modified the Frog Street curriculum to meet the needs of their children and families while adhering to Covid requirements, but they kept the goals and objectives of the curriculum intact. Their goal was to implement the curriculum with as much fidelity as possible.
Presently, they continue to strive to implement Frog Street with fidelity throughout all of classrooms by providing professional development to teaching staff based on strengths and needs and by providing one-on-one and group coaching with emphasis on curriculum.
Children did make gains during this time in both models for in-person and in distance learning. Based on classroom observations done three times a year and assessment data, DRDP scores were at or above foundation expectations. Teachers and parents became partners in sharing anecdotal notes about the children’s learning.
Frog Street professional development was consistently offered to help staff implement the curriculum with fidelity to include 562 hours or professional development and 114 coaching hours provided for teacher support. The teacher’s CLASS assessment scores demonstrate the gains teaching staff made during the last two years in most of the teaching strategy domains. For example, positive climate, teacher sensitivity, behavior management, instructional learning formats and productivity were all elevated scores.
Thanks to the flexibility of the teaching staff and parents…children continued to thrive. It was hard work, but it was very rewarding for everyone to see that the hard work paid off.
In the Fall 2021 – Spring 2022 school year children met or surpassed DRDP expectations in the following areas:
Salinas, CA
ImpactChildren made gains during the pandemic in both models for in-person and distance learning. Based on classroom observations and assessment data, DRDP scores were at or above foundation expectations along with improved CLASS assessment scores.
"...I am so grateful to be part of something so genuinely built with love for those in the community."
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Read StoryTo learn more about our products and professional development services, talk to your Frog Street Account Executive today.