In November, I wrote about the University of Washington’s new $40-million grant to build a center that would improve teaching at Head Start programs.

Now we have details.

While the UW’s center will focus on improving teaching practices at Head Start centers, it also will work to strike a balance between raising standards and keeping teachers from a Head Start program’s local community, according to a report in CHDD Outlook, a Center on Human Development and Disability newsletter.

“Preschool teaching is not babysitting. We need to be sure that all children are learning and these teachers need the ability to teach children who have a disability or who are really struggling.”
One of the areas that (Susan) Sandall (the center’s co-director) wants to focus on is raising the standards for Head Start teachers, many of whom are employed from the local communities and don’t necessarily have teaching certificates or much training in how children learn. This means that many instructional practices that have been proven to work are unknown by Head Start teachers or don’t occur consistently in the classroom, she noted. – “Improving Teaching in Head Start.”

The new program, which will have 25 to 30 staff members, also will draw on Sandall’s experience as an associate professor of special education at the UW.

Sandall, who is a former classroom teacher and a teacher trainer, said the new center’s mission is to find, evaluate and bring the most effective teaching practices to all children, including those with disabilities, enrolled in Head Start. The focus will be on inclusion, similar to the way that classes are conducted at the Haring Center’s Experimental Education Unit, (EEU), one of the University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities programs based at CHDD. A state-certified special education program, the EEU offers inclusive education classes and services as well as serving as a source of training for UW undergraduate and graduate students.

Bad Classrooms and Student Mental Health: A new study suggests a link between bad first-grade classrooms and mental health problems in students, U.S. News & World Report says.

The researchers found that students in classrooms with fewer resources, in terms of inadequate teaching materials and teachers who didn't feel supported by colleagues, were more likely to experience problems in several mental health areas. The areas considered in the study included attentiveness, fighting, anxiety and sadness, and the formation of friendships. – “Classroom Environment May Affect Kids' Mental Health: First-graders suffer when teacher support and material resources are lacking, study suggests.” HealthDay. 3/9/11.