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November 19th (Program Planning and organization)
IN CLASS: From the following listing, you can complete any two
assignments in tonight's lab activity in the class. ALL OF THESE WILL USEFUL TO
YOU IN COMPLETING YOUR FINAL PROJECT SUBMISSION.
1) Take your parent fee scales and match it to the average monthly cost for
child care in your proposed community (see: Children
Now County Report Card) and find your county. You can also use the data from
the California Resource and Referral Portfolio at: http://www.rrnetwork.org/rrnet/our_research/1046997942.php.
Are your fees reasonable given
market rate in your community? Are your rates too high or too low or "just
about right."How are you going to resolve this--just tell me in an email.
If you are using a state other than CA for your project this will not apply
2) Think about your proposed program/center. Will you have vertical or
chronological grouping of children? Develop and write a brief theoretically,
sound rationale for your decision.
3) Think about your daily schedule for the children for your program. Develop a outline of
your daily schedule of activities for the children. Include specific times, that
you will have activities available for the children (beginning and ending times)
as well as any overlapping activities. If you plan to have multiple
classrooms--do this for just one room tonight.
4) Go back up to September 3rd and click on the link for National
Resource for Health and Safety in Child Care. Click on link for individual
states licensure regulations and examine staff requirements (education and
ratios) for the state where you are proposing your center. Note what these
are for your use in developing your staffing plan (which will be due with your
final proposal). What does this mean for your staffing needs?
(COMPLETE THESE AND EITHER TURN IN THE WRITTEN RESPONSE OR EMAIL IT TO ME.
INDICATE BY ITEM NUMBER WHICH ITEMS YOU ARE DOING). THEN READ ON to HOMEWORK
HOMEWORK:
Read by next class (in addition to any assigned readings the following: SampleFamilyHandbook.PDF
November 12: Staff Issues (cont.)
In Class:
Part I: Based on the job descriptions you developed 2 weeks ago;
independently develop a list of a minimum of 8 questions that would be
appropriate to ask candidates applying for the job. Find a peer and role-play an
interview, using your questions . Do the "interview" for three minutes
and switch (each of you should be an interviewer and interviewee). For
tonight, you should then independently, email me your questions and also how you
felt about the questions you were asked.
Part II: Many of you last time had job descriptions that were
somewhat thin on detail. Take a look at this job description: Job DescriptionSample.pdf
that was created by one of you. This format would be more aligned with the
expectations that will be required with your final project. Please note that the
author indicated that she would expand on this as well. Using this as a guide,
begin to develop your job description for your Director (or if you did Director
last time, do a head teacher). Before you depart tonight, show me what you have
developed (and save it because this will be required for your final submission
of your project).
Homework:
For your final project, you will be required to develop the personnel
section of program's handbook. Review pp. 242-252 of your textbook regarding
personnel policies. What will you have as part of your personnel policies?
October 29: Recruitment of Staff
Start thinking about job descriptions for your staff. For your homework
tonight, go to the HR Web Site at Rice University at http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~humres/Training/HowToHire/.
There click on the link to guidelines for writing a job description. Read
through it. Also look at the links for your textbook and see if you can find
some job descriptions for Early Childhood Teachers using the web. For tonight's
assignment, begin writing a job description for one position in your program
(teacher, director, etc). Submit as a word file in an email. After you have
completed that assignment, you may want to work on your Phase II for your
project. I'll be out of town all next week so you have questions, now is the
time to ask.
October 22: Finances and Fiscal Information
The best way to figure out budgets is to work on one. Tonight your
assignment is two parts. First complete the exercise contained in the following
link: Budget Simulation Exercise.pdf.
Second, read material at the link from the Small Business
Administration Child Care Financing Module: http://www.onlinewbc.gov/docs/ChildCare/ccm5.htm#finance.
Using the charts in the document as a guide, start a spread sheet for your
program. When you turn in phase II of your project, you will be asked to include
a start-up budget, an operating budget and a monthly operating expense or cash
flow chart. Tonight you should be able to get a start on that process. If you
didn't bring your disk to save the material, you can email it to yourself as an
attachment.
You can view a cash flow statement in your text or at this link: (Cash
Flow.PDF).
If in your calculations you need information about taxes or other expenses,
go to the Small Business Administration (http://www.sba.gov/)
and click on the map for offices to support business in your targeted state.
October 15: Midterm
No online assignments tonight.
October 8: More on Facilities and Space plus
examining Equipment Issues
Explore resources on Playground Safety and email me your insights about
either costs of equipment or critical safety issues: http://www.uni.edu/playground/home.html
or National Program for Playground Safety (Go to Resources and see the page on
Playground Equipment and Distributors).
FYI: Please share with others, this foundation is looking for outstanding
Child Care Staff: http://www.childcareabc.org/
Terri Lynne Lokoff Child Care Foundation (TLLCCF).
Remember, next week is the midterm. See handout (distributed in class) or the
link from the class page.
October 1: More on Facilities and Space plus
examining Equipment Issues
Instructions: In Lieu of class tonight this is your "lecture."
There are two parts to this exercise. For Part I, you should complete the
assignment and bring your completed assignments to class with you to class next
week. I've left copies of the form for Assignment #1 on my bulletin board if
folks want copies to write on (rather than ripping it out of your book).
PART I
1.Within the next week, complete Working Paper 8-2 (from your
textbook) on a center that you are familiar with: This can be a program where
you work, volunteer or participate for a class. If you have difficulty locating
a program that you gain permission to visit and complete the form; please let me
know no later than noon Monday, October 6th and I will aid you in making the
arrangements. REMEMBER, ASK DIRECTOR'S PERMISSION FIRST prior to completing this
visitation form as it does require you to "snoop around.".
2. Using either the catalogs listed below (#4) or other printed equipment
catalogs or websites, begin to start working on equipping your proposed program.
Review Director's Resource 9-1 as a starting point. For next week come up with a
list of at least 15 basic items that you would need to start your program
(by basic I mean furnishings rather than materials for children). Be sure to
record what the item is; the quantity needed; the catalog you got it from; the
product number & most importantly the cost. Come up with a total of how much
you would need to spend to get these items. NOTE: Please see me ASAP if you
can't locate any resources to help with this exercise.
PART II: IN CLASS ASSIGNMENT (WHAT WOULD BE YOUR ONLINE
PORTION OF CLASS) EMAIL me your response to these by 5:00pm Thursday, October
2nd.
3.Look up information about safe toys/and or recalls from the US Consumer Product
Safety Commission (www.cpsc.gov).Find one
recall of something that might be found in a child care program and record when
it was recalled and why. How might centers and family child care homes know when
items get recalled for safety?
4. Compare prices on 3 pieces of equipment from 3 different catalogs. Find out
what the cost is along with the shipping and handling costs. Which vendor had
the best prices or the greatest selection? Write up what you found and turn it
in for credit. Here are some online catalog sites: Constructive Playthings (www.cptoys.com);
Early Childhood.com (www.earlychildhood.com);
J.L. Hammett (www.hammett.com)
LakeShore Learning Materials (www.lakeshorelearning.com);
Environments (www.eichild.com), Community
Playthings (www.communityplaythings.com).
Feel free to use other sites or actual catalogs for equipment than those listed
here.
September 24: Facilities and Space
1.Tonight part of activity will be a field trip to AS Children's Center
where we will complete Working Paper 8-2. (POSTPONED--see October 1st for
variation on this assignment).
For Items 2 & 3, please respond to me with email message.
2. Explore the following web sites: Building Child Care: A California
Statewide Collaborative (http://www.buildingchildcare.org),
and Spaces for Children (http://www.spacesforchildren.net).
What might you be able to use from these web sites in your project.
3. Child Care Center Design Guide
GSA (Federal General Services Administration) wrote this child care center design guide. This guide can help you make plans to design and furnish your center.
http://www.gsa.gov/attachments/GSA_PUBLICATIONS/pub/000000000041.pdf
.
For tonight, go to the Table of Contents and find an element that can
help you with your project. In your email indicate what item (page number and
element) and why it will be useful to you.
HOMEWORK: Discussed in class, items to begin working on for Phase II of your
Class Project.
September 17: Money makes the World Go
Around
Complete the following exercise (and email results as attachment or email):
1. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services provides a wide variety of assistance to small businesses. Not all the information will be pertinent to child care programs, but the Department is a source of grants that could help defray the high cost of child care programs.
Log on to http://www.dhhs.gov/ogam
Click on “Grants” in the left column.
Click on “Electronic Roadmap to Grants.”
Click on several of the sites designated on the map.
1. What kinds of information did you find?
2. Was there anything that would help the director of a child care center?
3. Should government agencies be involved in subsidizing private businesses? Explain your
answer
2. Tonight you have the following tasks: Using one of the resources listed
below find a minimum of two resources that specifically address either starting
or funding a child care program.
http://nccic.org/poptopics/funding-opportunities.html
(National Child Care Information Center resources on Funding). Also you may want to
examine (this link from National Child Care Information Center on support for
Non-traditional programming) http://www.nccic.org/ccpartnerships/facts/fs4.htm.
Again one paragraph on indicating the specific link you found and what you
learned.
Just as an FYI--Another resource I didn't include last week that you might
find helpful in your future work is: Grantseeker's Checklist
- from Montana State University. I also have several copies already printed
if you would like to have one.
HOMEWORK (Guidelines for Phase I):
Here are the guidelines (in Word) for what is due next week for Phase I of
your project. Please feel free to use tonight to work on it. Click on CD 256- Project
September 10: Working with Boards &
Need Assessments (Sources of Data):
1. Go to the
textbook web page for tonight's reading assignment (Chapter 5). Under relevant
web sites, go to the link for either the 4th web site (BoardSource). Go
there and then check out the Board Q & A section. Click on more Board Q
& A link. There you will see links to Q & A's listed by categories such
as Fund Raising and Legal Issues. Pick two different categories that interest
you. Find a question & answer under each of your two categories. Send me (as an email attachment) an Word
document, that identifies the question & the answer you read and what you learned from it.
Do you have any questions regarding bylaws and working with boards after
reading the chapter on this topic? If so, please add that to your email above.
2. Review the BUTTE COUNTY LOCAL CHILD CARE PLANNING COUNCIL
bylaws. What would be different between these bylaws and those for a child care
& development program?
3. Start thinking about your project and where you might locate your program
(class project). In terms of communities, see what you can find out about your
community from the American Fact Finder site at the Census Bureau about your
communities demographics. This is at: http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/BasicFactsServlet.
(Let me know when you get to this point and I'll show you how to do some
searching).
Also check out data for your designed county via
the California Child Care Resource & Referral webpage. See:
http://www.rrnetwork.org/rrnet/our_research/1046997942.php
then link to network data and then find the 2001 California Child Care
Portfolio. Once you have followed those links you should be able to
find data organized by county. Be sure to read the link, Understanding the Data
Page, prior to going to your page. I don't need you to send me what you find
tonight, but be sure and record data about market rate and population that you
will need for your project.
HOMEWORK
Readings for next week (those listed as TBD on syllabus) for
September 17: Read through the following online materials on grants and grant
writing:
BRING TO CLASS: For next week, locate an advertisement for a
child care program and bring it to class. These can be from any resource (paper,
Internet, flyer, phone book). Also for next week, please think about key elements that you
would like to include in your program philosophy. Be sure to review the
questions in Working Paper 3-1 (p. 43) and make notes on these, in preparation for next week's class.
September 3rd: IN CLASS
TOPIC--REGULATIONS, ACCREDITATION, & RESOURCES:
1. State Standards, Information about state
standards for child care licensure: One link that I have found most useful for comparison
is the National Child Care
Information Center or http://www.nccic.org/.
Once there click on State Profiles. Choose two states (CA can be one) and write
a brief comparison on ratios (if you are interested in center care) or group
size if you are interested in family child care. (Send this as an email or email
attachment but be sure to put CD 256, Sept 3rd in subject line).
2. Also take a look at: http://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/cd/op/
and read about the plethora of programs that are supported by the state of
California along with money from the CDBG (Child Development Block
Grant--federal monies that are up for review this year). Not only do many of the
programs have to address and meet standards of Child Care Licensing (Title 22),
these also meet Title 5 Regulations. Read thru this page and again tell one
thing you learned from reading it (include it in your email).
3. Go to the this Child Care Bulletin
on Regulations (first article). Read it and in an email include a summary paragraph of what you learned. After you've done that you
can either work on your homework or you are free to dismiss yourself.
HOMEWORK
Read the July 2002 position paper, "A
Stark Plateau--California Families see little Growth in Child Care Centers,"
by B. Fuller, et. al.--.PACE (Policy Analysis for California Education). Write a short (1 or 2
paragraph) and email it to me (either as an attachment or in the text of the
message), in which you
describe how this information might be useful to you as someone considering
opening a child care program in California. In other words, what does the
information in this policy brief tell you both globally and specifically about
child care needs in California? This is due by the beginning of class next week
and again be sure to put CD 256 Homework due by 9/10 in subject line.
RESOURCES (FOR reference and in the future)
If you want to look at the individual state statues (i.e., the legal pieces)
use the link at National
Resource for Health and Safety in Child Care, click on link for individual
states licensure regulations (look at the frame on the right and scroll
down to the link that says "State Licensing and Regulation
Information).
Another resource will be using is childcare.gov.
August 27th:
In Class Assignments
1). For the class tonight, you should visit the Community Care
Licensing site (http:// www.ccld.ca.gov).
In the frame at the left, you should see a link entitled "Search for a
facility." Go there and find out how many facilities serving infants, large
family child care and centers there are in your home town. Now go to NAEYC
(http://www.naeyc.org) and
click on the link in the frame called Accreditation. Go down on that page to the
Accreditation Program search and see if there are any accredited centers in your
home town. Let me know what you find, by turning in a summary** before you
leave.
2). Also at one of the two sites mentioned above (CCL or NAEYC), look around
and find something that could be important for you to know as you explore the
role of a director in administration of child care program. Add that to you
summary to turn in**.
3).Go to the library Research Station and find the Lexus-Nexus Academic
link. Do a Lexus-Nexus quick search on the term "Preschool for
All" (be sure to use quotes). Read one of the articles that you find
there and be sure to include in your submission** a brief description of what
you found out.
**Turn in your summary electronically by creating an Word file and emailing
it to me as an attachment. If you don't know how to do that, ask I'll give you a
quick tutorial (my email is mgroves@csuchico.edu).
Be sure to put CD 256--August 27 in the subject line and sign your email if you
are using an alias. Also, listed your responses by number.
HOMEWORK
1). For next week go to California Community Care
Licensing* -- for a link to Title 22 of the Child Care Regulations, click here.
As this site contains regulations for all types of caregiving you will want to
view those pertaining to Child Care (Title 22, Div 12, Chap 1, Art 1-7 for child
care; Title 22, Div 12, Chap 1, Subchapter 2 for Infant Centers & School Age
Care; or Title 22, Div 12, Chap 3 for Family Child Care. For next week's class I
would like you to record (verbatim) two separate laws/regulations governing
child care. To improve your familiarity with the regulations, please record two
laws governed two different areas (e.g., personnel requirements and health &
safety rules). Be sure to bring this to next week's class.
*If you are interested in developing your class project in a state other
than California, please view that state's licensing regulations. See me if you
need assistance in locating those online.
2). Complete class assignment #1 (p. 9) of the Sciarra & Dorsey book
sometime during the next week (note it asks you to log your time for 2 days, for
purposes of this exercise, try to use "work days"). Bring this to
class next week
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