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I agree. I have some VERY strong feelings about Head Start.
They are the number one reason I chose to open my own child care.
Let's just say that it's kind of like working in your favorite fast food place. Once you see the operations behind the counter it makes you think twice before eating there again.
That is kind of my experience with Head Start.Comment
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here is a link for Ca. providers:
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here is the list of counties participating and the contact information for the agencies implementing the QRIS in each county:
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Here are Ca. publications that anyone participating in the QRIS will need to be familiar with:
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I am not against going back to school, Crystal, if there was more time and money to do so and I wasn't almost 60 I would. I am open 6am-midnight six days a week trying to bring in enough children to pay my bills. It just isn't 2 hours a month, it is at least 3.5 by the time I drive to the closest class and I have to hire someone to come in and care for the children or tell the parents to find alternate care which either way cuts into my bottom line.Can I ask, why you are against going back to school? (I am NOT being judgemental, I am just curious, as I know alot of providers feel this way)I know it's alot of work, and is time consuming, but it is SO rewarding. Even with my many years of experience, when I went back to school and started learning about child development and DAP, I learned how much I DIDN'T know that I thought I did know and my program was transformed by it!
I think 24 hours of training is completely acceptable. That is only 2 hours per month, which really shouldn't cut in to when you care for children.
Last year we made $25K and $12k went to mortgage. Yes, we are under water being that we bought it at the "perfect" time but to lose the home and move to another location is not feasible nor a good solution.
We just recently went thru a High Scope program revamp while being coached by our local R&R and United Way and while most of the enhancements were not expensive it does add up overall and we completely remodeled our basement for dedicated daycare space.
My enrollment has been down since 2008 which is also when my husband lost his job after working in the automotive field for 38 years. He is "unhireable". All of his degrees an furthering his education isn't doing squat to help him find work. Recently he took a minimum wage job cleaning a fast food restaurant 15 hours a week and making less than 1/4 of his former hourly wage. He is 60 and has been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis about 10 years ago. His medication cost for one prescription is $1800 a month and we can't afford to pay for health insurance so we do not have any.
Yes, furthering your education can be very rewarding. I have a bunch of credits under my belt already in both Early Childhood Education and Fine Arts, plus I have my technology certificate and am licensed as a Nail Tech. I take multiple classes at my R&R and do enjoy them.
I resent however being told by our Government that I have to spend more money and time to take classes and make less money. After all this is said and done I will not be able to charge more nor have more clients to increase my income. Doing all of this extra paperwork, assessments, parent conferences and home visits(who are they kidding) is not going to give me more $, just subtract time. The state says that I can't make more.
I just heard a news article about the millions of dollars that is being put into this Federally. Problem is that the K-12 schools don't have enough to do what they need and are cutting Kindergarten altogether or downsizing it. They want us to pick up the slack for not hiring or keeping degreed teachers and to do their work for less.I see little people.Comment
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Originally Posted by Blackcat31
ALL Head Start programs are automatically given the highest number of stars as they are "The model of success" and ideally what they would like to see all care facilities emulate.
I simply cannot roll my eyes enough on this one....
It would break my heart to think my daycare was compared to any Head Start programs around here I would never send my own kids to one even if it is free.
Our Head Start program here is wonderful and I have had nothing but good to say about it. I guess it is subjective to your State or district. Ours are modeled under the Internationally acclaimed HighScope program which is also what I am modeled after.I see little people.Comment
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Yes, the quality of Head Start is probably subjective to each area and I shouldn't have made a blanket statement about the program itself, as I learned ALOT while being employed with them and they are the reason I am where I am today (whether for good or bad reasons) I did find my calling to ECE through them.
The Head Start programs in my area also follow High Scope and personally I like the approach.....I just have issue with some of the experiences I personally had while working there and some of the things I have had DCP's share with me so I should have specified in my comments that I feel the way I do due to my own experiences.
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The Head Starts here are awful. Not a fun place for kids to go. It's like prison camp for kids. No individuality, no nurturing. It's robotic and cold.
I looked into it for my SIL a few years back as she valued my input.... and after experiencing a visit there, I told her to run a mile. Free or not....I really felt it would damage our nephew. She never did place him and he started KG and excelled just fine without having the 'education" that Head Start was supposed to give him. He stayed home with his loving Mom instead....much better.
I had a woman in my old church congregation that worked there. A mean and nasty woman who spoke to her own kids like they were dirt. I shudder to think how she treated the Head Start kids. She wasn't there the day I visited. Funny thing is, she was educated and supposedly an "expert" in early childhood education. You'd never believe it hearing her berate her own children (and that was in public...who knows how she was at home)
We have two Head Starts close by and both are terrible. Glad to hear that's not the case elsewhere.Comment
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OP - back with an update
Hi everyone. Sorry I haven't been around for a few days. Life got in the way!!
Just wanted to update this post and say that I went to my focus group tonight. It was actually kind of fun. It wasn't a time for talking about the program itself. Our feelings about it were not a part of the discussion in any way. The facilitator was hired as a third party to run the conversation, and he was very good at it. We had 11 handouts that we were asked to fill out at particular times during the 90 minute conversation. They were basically finding out how we felt about certain words and phrases. We either ranked them from 1-4 (or 1-5, 1-6, etc.) on how compelling they were to us, or we were asked to write down words or feelings that their words or phrases immediately brought to mind for us. What they kind of did was got our initial feelings at the very beginning of the meeting, then our feelings after some discussion, then at the end we put down our favorite title, and favorite mission statement.
Some examples of titles, if I can think of them, were Early Learners, Early Start Oregon, Learning First.... There were 5 or 6 and I'll be darned if I can remember any more of them! I literally left the meeting 45 minutes ago too!! Some mission statements were Quality Early Learning Lasts a Lifetime .... and my mind is blank. Darn it! I wanted to be able to remember them!! If I remember more in the morning, I'll post.
Anyway, he also briefly talked about the rating system and what we thought of using stars, tiers, steps, levels, bronze/silver/gold, or ABCDF. No handout on that, just discussion.
It was fun, even though I do not want my Daycare to be judged or graded, but it wasn't about that. Best part is walking out and being handed my envelope with a crisp $50 bill in it!!!Comment
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Nope, I can't think of any more of the titles or statements. I'm approaching the big 5-0, so I guess my memory is fading.
I'm still against the program, but the PROCESS of this focus group was fun and interesting. Can't wait to see what they end up using.Comment
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Does this remind anyone else of something from your childhood??? :
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The people who enforce the training are the same people who SELL the training.Attached Files- Unless otherwise stated, all my posts are personal opinion and worth what you paid for them.
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Not sure I follow you? "Sell" as in money changing hands, or "sell" as in talk it up good so we will like it?
Sorry... I feel a little slow in the noggin today! What did you mean?Comment
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I would never send my own kids to one even if it is free.
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