Several years ago one of our parents told us that walking through the doors of Parish Day School felt like receiving a warm hug. We cannot think of a better compliment to our program. We want everyone who walks through our doorway to feel the love we have for our little learners and their first experience with school.
One of the many ways we show our love of Early Childhood is through our accrediations and commitment to our children's growth and development. This past Fall, Parish Day School went through accrediation with the National Association of the Young Child (NAEYC). This is the third time that our school has gone through this process, but completing this tremendous achievement during a world pandemic felt like an even bigger accomplishment for our team. We had to shift how we connected with students and parents and rethink our classrooms to keep our children, their families, and our staff safe.
NAEYC Accredidation is a rigorous and transformative process of quality improvement that uses a set of 10 research-based standards to allow programs to recognize and drive quality-improvement and to provide high-quality early learning enviroments for our little learners.
To earn NAEYC Accreditation, Parish Day School went through an extensive self-study and quality-improvement process, followed by an on-site visit by NAEYC Assessors to verify and ensure that the program met each of the ten program standards, and hundreds of corresponding individual criteria. We are incredibly proud of the staff who worked tirelessly to make this happen.
NAEYC-Accredited programs must:
· Promote positive relationships for all children and adults to encourage each child’s sense of individual worth.
· Implement a curriculum that fosters all areas of child development: cognitive, emotional, language, physical, and social.
· Use developmentally, culturally, and linguistically appropriate and effective teaching approaches.
· Provide ongoing assessments of each child’s learning and development and communicate the child’s progress to the family.
· Promote the nutrition and health of children and protect children and staff from illness and injury.
· Employ and support a teaching staff that has the educational qualifications, knowledge, and professional commitment necessary to promote children’s learning and development and to support families’ diverse interests and needs.
· Establish and maintain collaborative relationships with each child’s family.
· Establish relationships with and use the resources of the community to support achievement of program goals.
· Provide a safe and healthy physical environment.
· Implement strong personnel, fiscal, and program management policies so that all children, families, and staff have high-quality experiences.
In the 30 years since NAEYC Accreditation was established, it has become a widely recognized sign of high-quality early childhood education. More than 7,000 programs are currently accredited by NAEYC—less than 10 percent of all child care centers, preschools, and kindergartens nationally achieve this recognition.
Thank you to our Parent Teacher Fellowship and Parish Day School Board for celebrating and showering our our school team with love this Monday, February 14th! We have much to celebrate!!
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