ECA is helping the Lowell Massachusetts Public Schools in its ongoing effort to provide ever-improving high quality of early education to children. The 2013 Birth to Grade 3 Alignment Project is targeted at supporting early education and care and public school programs in aligning services and support in conjunction with the Common Core, standards-based curriculum, assessment and expectations for teacher, classroom and child outcomes. The engagement provides a look at the multi-faceted nature of delivering high quality early education and offers an exciting assortment of interrelated activities that support Alignment in six critical areas – Leadership, Teacher, Quality, Instructional Tools and Practices, Instructional Environment, Data and Assessments, and Engaged Families.
As part of this engagement ECA is:
- Developing Lowell Leadership Teams to build a common language around alignment.
- Creating communities of practice for family child care providers and center based staff to align instruction to the QRIS, to share successes and challenges, and to provide training on the CLASS tool for Infants to Grade 3.
- Spearheading a Leadership Coaching model and PD plan that aligns standards, curriculum and instruction in language and literacy with educator performance.
- Providing staff with Data Days TM, our acclaimed proprietary PD, on interpreting and using progress monitoring data to improve and differentiate instruction.