Dear Colleagues,
Years ago, an administrator stopped by my kindergarten classroom while on a site visit. He quickly scanned the room and my students -- a room bubbling with robust activity and children fully engaged in learning -- hesitant to enter, remarking aloud, “Oh, so this is the daycare.”
Clearly, he didn’t ‘get it.’
The end of the year is a good time to celebrate how far we’ve come, and how our understanding of brain development and early learning has evolved over the last few years. That being said, there is work to be done. Last week, it was announced at the Maryland State Board of Education that the 2017 Kindergarten Readiness Assessment shows only 45% of our children enter kindergarten demonstrating the readiness skills needed for success. While that is a 2% increase from last year, I take that data as an urgent call to action.