Hours of Operation

Childcare services are provided from 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM Monday to Friday. School age care will also be conducted at these times.

Courses

We also provide EMS Health & Safety Institute, EMS Safety Instructor, CPR, FIRST AID, BBP, and AED courses.

• Initial certificate
  The State Early Childhood Education Initial Certificate provides an introduction to the field of early childhood education. This entry level certificate prepares childcare providers for assistant and aide positions in early learning settings. It covers basic topics related to caring for young children and licensing requirements.
• Short Certificate
  State Early Childhood Education Initial Certificate graduates will:

  • be able to maintain a safe and healthy environment for children
  • be prepared to monitor and make appropriate changes for safety in both the indoor and outdoor learning environment
  • be able to plan and monitor a children’s menu following DCYF guidelines
  • be prepared to apply learning theory as it relates to children’s play in the learning setting
  • be prepared to work as an entry level staff member in an early childhood setting
  • be prepared to apply best practices in all interactions with children.

• CDA
  The CDA PD Specialist’s role requires keeping abreast of current policies and procedures to maintain professional awareness and knowledge through all Council communication. These include, the Council website, the Council LINK newsletter, CDA PD Specialist training, PDS Portal Resource Library, CDA PD Specialist, LinkedIn group, and participation in Council webinars, group chats and workshops. As a CDA PD Specialist we bring our early childhood education (ECE) expertise to assess candidates’ competencies to obtain their Child Development Associate (CDA) Credential.

  As CDA PD Specialist and an early childhood professional, we are trained, contracted, and endorsed by the Council to utilize my expertise in early childhood education to facilitate the final stages of the credentialing process for candidates within your local communities. We have the knowledge and the know-how to support the professional development of early childhood care and educational professionals. Furthermore, by being a CDA PD Specialist, we are recognized as an excellent resource and facilitators of the credentialing process.

• Soy Bilingüe Seminar: Language, Culture, and Young Children
  The Soy Bilingüe Seminar is designed to provide a framework for teaching children whose primary language is one other than English as well as teaching a second language to English speaking children. It covers relevant theoretical and practical information related to bilingual early childhood and elementary education methods with a goal of the development of cultural competence and respect for learners growing up in a bilingual world. The emphasis is on the development of a language plan, selecting options for organizing language usage (time based or teacher-based models), and responding to the linguistic and cultural backgrounds of children and their families in curriculum planning. The natural process of acculturation (or cultural transmission) through song-games is a central component of this class. Participants will learn various folkloric dances, songs, song-games, finger-plays, lullabies, and rhythms.
• Teaching Umoja: Culturally Relevant Anti-bias, Approaches to Working with Young Children
  The Teaching Umoja Seminar presents a community-centered approach to tri-literacy development with Children of Color. “Umoja” is the Kiswahili word meaning unity. This concept and practice of unity are the driving vision of this commitment to improve the quality of education – and of life – for children and families of color. The seeds of the Teaching Umoja Commitment were planted in an earlier PAR effort, Teaching Umoja: Simultaneous Culture-Centric Approaches to Education, which developed ten ideas to support culture-centric education for African American and for Latino children in the same program. These ideas are nestled within the concept of “tri-literacy.” The first level of literacy includes a strong sense of self – cultural identity – to have pride in our culture and language – enculturation. The second level of literacy is the skills to reject the rejection about our cultural identities – cloaked as racial oppression – and the access to equity in education and academic achievement by learning the codes of power – biculturation. The third level of literacy is developing cross-cultural skills to be in collaboration with other communities of color – acculturation. This became the foundation and stepping-stone for the long-term commitment to the in-depth expanded research effort of these three levels of literacy: The Teaching Umoja Participatory Action Research (PAR) 15 Commitment. In this interactive and creative seminar, participants will engage with concepts, use cultural arts and creative exploration, practice techniques, reflect on their work with children and families.
• Human Development and Learning
  This course provides a survey of human physical, psychological, and social development throughout the life cycle. This class explores in depth how themes, which begin in early childhood, recur later in the life cycle. Building on the work of Dr. Leticia Nieto regarding Life Cycle Spirals, students explore the theoretical constructs of Darder, Freire, Erikson, Piaget, Vygotsky, Hale, Dewey, Gardner, and object relations theory. This exploration of life-span development takes place within the framework of social justice and the social construction of knowledge. Students examine the ways that learners construct their knowledge of the world by engaging with others through living and acting in the world. They also examine the ways that human beings are well nurtured in culturally democratic learning communities, which support academic success and social responsibility for all. Students are guided in using developmental concepts from readings to reflect on their own life cycles and development of voice. Emphasis is placed on the bridges between psychosocial development stages. Students work with the concepts of “holding environments” and “cultural democracy.” Students learn to recognize optimum human patterns and address them from a developmental perspective. The focus is on developmental themes, empathy, and culture. A research project focusing on a developmental issue and intense observations will be a requirement of this class.
• Human Development and Learning
  Bicultural Dance Pedagogy

  This course explores the ability of cultural dance forms to create a space where children and their communities can make themselves understood and listened to, defining themselves as empowered cultural beings. Using the work “A Critical Bicultural Pedagogy of Dance: Embodying Cultural Literacy” by Antonia Darder, students examine the ways in which poor working class children of color are made to feel what they bring to the classroom is useless to their education and are expected to assimilate to the dominant system of culture and learning. They will also examine the strategies for survival these children use to assimilate and how they gain all the rewards of doing so, but at the expense of the cultural knowledge and wisdom that is their birthright. They will explore cultural literacy of the body as a bicultural space for emotional, psychological and spiritual communication enacted through the dance, and how this can be enacted in the classroom. Emphasis is placed on the importance of dance as a counter-force, liberation, therapy, release, and healing effort in the face of repression and forced assimilation, as a means to keep cultural traditions alive, as a connection to our history and ancestors, as well as a connection to a greater sense of humanity. Students will experience music and art through active teaching methods incorporating the entire body, and are encouraged to make their own connections between the materials presented and their own personal cultural identity.

  Early childhood educators are challenged to move out of their comfort zone to incorporate a multicultural approach in the classroom.

• Bicultural Dance Pedagogy
  This workshop focuses on identity work with early childhood educators to help them understand who they are as cultural beings and how this influences their work with young children and their families. Students examine Antonia Darder’s Sphere of Bicultural Development Theory which names four responses to the process of biculturation: cultural alienation, cultural dualism, cultural separatism, and cultural negotiation. In this process, bicultural students will explore where they are in this process and how they have moved from one response to another throughout their lives. Through studying the work of Tilman Smith, European American students will develop skills in cross-cultural competency in order to know themselves as cultural beings and better understand the concept of cultural negotiation for their bicultural peers. All students will create an artistic representation of their cultural identity in the form of a painting, drawing, collage of photographs (physical or digital),collage of cut-outs from magazines, song, poem, short-story, mini-play, dance performance, collection of 3-D objects, or any combination of these items and methods. They will explore the transformative power of art to express their thoughts and feelings surrounding culture and identity and discuss ways to create similar projects of identity expression with the children in their learning spaces.

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