Dear Early Childhood and DCCD Network,
 
I hope the start of your school year is going well.  At a recent Early Childhood (EC) Network Steering Committee, the idea of the Regional Office of Education offering an EC teacher development program for new hires was shared.   The thought was based on the desire to join together to address unique needs EC new hires (which often differs from the K-8 teachers) and minimize the need for each district to build a new hire program.  

As the number of EC new hires is usually a small number in each district, the Steering Team thought that it would be beneficial to bring new EC teachers across the county together to share in professional development in some common areas. Some examples might include Curriculum and Instruction, Assessment, Classroom set up, Play based instruction and Learning, Social Emotional Learning, Behavior Management and Remote Teaching.
 
In this program design, The Regional Office of Education would work in partnership with STARNET to offer approximately four- five professional development sessions. Additionally, the ROE would provide a one-hour virtual meeting with the teachers between professional development sessions to process and problem solve. There will be no registration cost.
 
Prior to moving forward with this idea, we would like to seek information on the interest level and need of our districts in reference to this idea.  We would appreciate your input on the questions below.  Once we have this information, we will confirm our next steps on this topic.

Sharon Frys, Ed.D.
Regional Office of Education