Education Coordinator, Kinderberry Hill Child Development Centers

My name is Sara Reichstadt and I am the Education Coordinator for Kinderberry Hill Child Development Centers. I am working a lot on adult education. So a lot of teacher trainings, orientations, seeds of early literacy curriculum stuff. We are currently working to become a Reggio inspired program, so doing work with the Reggio Network of Minnesota, which has been fun. Here at the University of Minnesota, in and out of the lab school, asking questions, that's kind of where we are right now. A little bit of the parent ed piece, as well. There are some requirements within the first six months of hiring. Wanting to make sure we have training on assessment practices, and then, as well as the seeds of early literacy, a literacy curriculum. We ask teachers to take that right away, if they don't already have taken that. And then, when they start, there is an orientation process. And then oftentimes, they are paired with one of our stronger teachers, and kind of mentored in, in that way. If we have teachers come to us from other places, they'll say how much they appreciate the freedom we have. We don't give them a set curriculum. They have learning outcomes that they must intentionally teach in the classroom. But they have the freedom to follow the interests of the children, and the interests in their own passion in the classroom, and I think that's a big selling point to our teachers. Also, our resources are not as limited as a lot of schools. If you have a great idea, take it to your director, we'll figure out a way to get it to happen. It might not be right that week, but we can figure out and get that on the calendar, how you're going to be able to do this with your class. That also, I think, is very important to our teachers. Another thing that we offer our students is Spanish, music, Fit Kids, our little fitness program, and science classes. So that also is a benefit to our families and our teachers.