Curriculum: Our campus is currently in its second year of adoption with the Frog Street Press Pre-K Curriculum. Not only is the Frog Street Curriculum on the approved list of adopted curriculum for Prekindergarten, but it also addresses the Revised Texas Prekindergarten Guidelines (Updated 2015) in the following domains:

Social and Emotional Development
Language and Communication
Emergent Literacy Reading
Emergent Literacy Writing
Mathematics
Science
Social Studies
Fine Arts
Physical Development and Health
Technology

Each summer our Pre-K teachers have access to attend the three-day Frog Street Conference in Grapevine, Texas. This conference not only addresses the units and components within the curriculum, but it also introduces our staff to well-known leaders, authors and educators within the Early Childhood Education field such as Don Monopoli (musical artist with the Learning Station), Becky Baily (author of Conscious Discipline), and Dan St. Romain (educational behavioral consultant), just to name a few. Through their attendance at this conference, our teachers stay informed and current on new legislative developments in Early Childhood, gained greater understanding and awareness of behavioral skills and techniques to use in the classroom, through Conscious Discipline, and acquire new instructional information and strategies to use in the classroom specifically for Early Education.

We also implement a supplementary curriculum, Learning Without Tears, that compliments and enriches our current Frog Street curriculum. This program is used in conjunction with our main curriculum and targets proper pencil grip for little hands, correct letter/number formation to improve handwriting skills, and help students link letter/sound identification in a written form.

Student Progress Monitoring: Kaufman ISD is very proud of their students’ academic accomplishments and understands that this type of success must start at the very beginning, in Early Childhood. We take learning very seriously at Helen Edwards ECC and are actively looking for ways to help our students achieve both academically and within Fine Arts. As a way to monitor our student’s success, we are members of the Childhood Learning Institute (CLI) where we have access to teacher trainings and modules, a student progress monitoring system tool, and a variation of data reports. We have been active members of CLI Engage for the past eight years and utilize the CIRCLE Progress Monitoring tool that measures:

Social and Emotional Development
Language and Communication
Emergent Literacy Reading
Emergent Literacy Writing
Mathematics

You can view our current Beginning of Year data:

You can view our current End of Year data:

Along with CIRCLE, which is included on the Commissioner’s List of Approved Prekindergarten Progress Monitoring Instruments, we also use Texas Kindergarten Entry Assessment (TX KEA) as our Kindergarten Readiness Assessment Instrument, which is also listed on the Commissioner’s list. Through the use of these two measuring tools, we actively track and monitor our student’s learning and provide instructional interventions as needed for each individual student. Because here at Helen Edwards, “learning is our business!”

Teacher Qualifications: We are proud that each of our Pre-K teachers are certified teachers through the Texas Education Agency (TEA) and receive continuing education in the field of Early Childhood. Each of our teachers are also required to complete 150 cumulative hours of professional development addressing all ten domains in the Pre-K Guidelines. This is not an easy task, as one third of their hours must be completed through “experiential learning, coaching, and/or instructional support.” Our Regional Service Center (Region 10) and district support has offered exceptional trainings and support, which helps our teachers reach this robust requirement.