A Look Back- End of year Roundup!

It’s truly been a whirlwind of a school year filled with both highs and lows and as we look back, we want to focus on all of the amazing things our centers have accomplished both pre, during and  as we move into post-quarantine. From opening new centers, to developing our programs through dual language learning, to having fun creating theater pieces with our students – this school year has been memorable.  

We opened our first ever location along the central coast in Monterey, CA, offering Infant, Toddler & Preschool services for the first time in our Northern California region.  

Supporting our multilingual students and families is one of our biggest priorities. Our families and communities are at the core of our operation and seeing the exceptional effort from our staff in supporting our Dual Language Program(DLL) really brings home our mission as an organization. The program provided weekly meetings for staff and training workshops helping staff support the children; including learning how to better support home language learning and increasing knowledge of the benefits to dual language learning. Through building program awareness to dual language learners and supporting home language learning, our staff was able to reinforce the values we share as an organization.

This year, we further developed our Teaching Pyramid – a systematic framework developed by CSEFEL that incorporates Early Childhood Positive Behavior Support through promoting social-emotional development, by providing support for children’s appropriate behavior, preventing challenging behavior and addressing problematic behavior. Our staff was able to provide a solid program foundation for the Teaching Pyramid with goals to support the whole child in early childhood education and beyond.  

Our CDI team in the Ventura, CA area has built exceptional relationships with our Mixtec community, which has allowed us to meet the needs of hardworking families as we partner with their communities throughout challenges and triumphs. 

Over this past year, we’ve been thrilled to see more and more exciting center specific happenings locally, such as the introduction of our Oxnard Safety Officer’s program. This program includes an ever-evolving group of school agers who help keep our Green Valley center safe.  

Students at our Regnart center continued to demonstrate community involvement by helping keep the school campus clean, actively raising funds for charities and creating care kits for a local homeless shelter. 

Each day, we’re amazed by the degree of talent at our centers with our students; from plays written and directed by students such as our performers at Birch Lane CDC and learning to play the Ukulele at Canyon View CDC. Our centers continued to live out our core through family activities like our Art of Salsa Making event, which simultaneously encourages family time and healthy eating.  

This school year has been exciting, challenging, and connecting – while pushing us to continue to be better, as educators and community partners. It’s no doubt that we’re dealing with difficult times, which requires us all to make adjustments to fit our ever-evolving new reality. As we swing into the summer, our focus continues to be working to best serve our students in today’s evolving world. As we approach the new school year, we will continue to push for our centers to be places of engagement, fun, security and learning.