{"id":15030,"date":"2019-01-11T11:09:30","date_gmt":"2019-01-11T16:09:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/msde\/?p=15030"},"modified":"2019-01-11T11:11:00","modified_gmt":"2019-01-11T16:11:00","slug":"the-power-of-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/msde\/the-power-of-community\/","title":{"rendered":"The Power of Community"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/h3>\n

Erin Doolittle<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Frederick County Teacher of the Year, 2015<\/strong><\/h2>\n

My school is a truly special place. \u00a0We have the privilege to educate a population where more than 55% speak a language other than English at home and where more than 90% qualify for Free and Reduced Meals. \u00a0It can be a challenge, but most of all it is incredibly rewarding. Our school does a lot to encourage families to be involved in their child\u2019s education right from the start and we often wonder about the effectiveness of our programs and outreach. \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Today I want to share the story of how we empower parents and create children who enter school ready to learn. \u00a0Several years ago, I had a student in my kindergarten class who entered school never having spoken English. \u201cJose\u201d had few readiness skills and struggled to adjust to school. \u00a0I met with his mother and encouraged her to attend some of our school\u2019s parent education nights. She was reluctant to become involved, having limited English and low academic skills herself. \u00a0I continued to encourage her and invited her every time to events that I thought she might be interested in. <\/span><\/p>\n

Finally, one evening she came. \u00a0I was providing childcare this evening, watching younger siblings so parents and kindergarteners could work together without being distracted. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Jose\u2019s mother dropped off his baby sister, \u201cRosi\u201d, in the childcare room. That evening, I held Rosi for an hour and a half while she cried and cried. \u00a0Her mother and Jose, however, had a wonderful time at the family event. They began to come to every event that the school offered, literacy nights, play groups, story hour, and parent education nights. \u00a0Mom began to attend English classes and brought Rosi to the accompanying early childhood classroom. Mom learned skills that she could help the children with at home to build literacy and numeracy skills as well as language skills. \u00a0Four years later, Rosi proudly walked into my Pre-K classroom on the first day of school and said, \u201cI\u2019m Rosi and I am ready for school.\u201d And ready she was\u2014She knew many of her letters, could count to 10, and was able to write her name. \u00a0She knew how to participate in group activities and had the social skills to work with other students. She learned all of these skills because her mother was willing to take that first scary step and attend a school program. <\/span><\/p>\n

Teachers and schools often wonder how impactful the programs and resources they offer are. \u00a0This story proves that we are making a difference every day. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

<\/a>
\nErin Doolittle
\nFrederick County Teacher of the Year, 2015
\nMy school is a truly special place. \u00a0We have the privilege to educate a population   …Learn more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":148,"featured_media":15161,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,11,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-announcements","category-overview","category-toystoriesblog"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/msde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/msde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/msde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/msde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/148"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/msde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15030"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/msde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15030\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15166,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/msde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15030\/revisions\/15166"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/msde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/msde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/msde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/msde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}