Vision and Organizational Capacity - Paper Example

The success of a Pre-kindergarten for All program facility has a great impact on the future education performance of the child. Pre-K education prepares children for advanced education at the kindergarten level and beyond as well as nurturing their social and interactive skills in the company of their peers. Located at Princes Bay in Staten Island, this Pre-K program will be called Royalty Pre-K, a play on the name of our location, and a promise to the community and parents on how we intend to handle children who will enroll.

Shaping a Vision

Pre-K for All vision: Our vision as a Pre-K for All institution is right with the citys mayor De Blasio, which is to offer high quality, full-day early childhood education for children between the age of 4 years in preparation for formal schooling in kindergarten and beyond. The goal of our program is to create a safe, nurturing environment for all children. Royalty Pre-K is run by a management and staff that live to love children, our commitment is to create the safest, cleanest, and most risk free learning and growth environment for your children- our child-loving tendencies wouldnt let us do it any other way. We encourage children to be as curious as possible on their environment; both while at school and out at home with parents and guardians. We believe that curiosity is the greatest asset of children at this formative stage, and carefully guided interests can allow children to develop life-long interest.

Our Pre-K facility is especially designed to suit the needs of single-parent families or those with two working parents who nonetheless desire the greatest level of care for their children in their pre-education years. It is our guarantee to all families who entrust the future of their children to us that we shall nurture these bundles of joy for a seamless education by introducing them to learning using the New York State Department of Education approved syllabus for Pre-K education. Our greatest aim is to ensure that parents whose children school at our institutions never have to worry about the safety of their children, or their future academic interests. In keeping in line with the directives of our Honourable Mayor, all services offered at Royalty Pre-K are free of charge on approval by the NYC Early Education Center, with costs being offset by Municipal government and other donor funds. The uniqueness of our program lay in our having a highly dedicated and well-trained staff, our cultural diversity, and highest quality of facilities.

Program beliefs: our program believes in nurturing the talents of children from a young age, with all out-of-class activities being moderated by teaching staff who are well trained on ways of identifying the abilities of children and fostering them. We believe that the formative years of children before they join the formal education system; kindergarten and beyond, are the most important in shaping their lives afterwards. All members of our staff are trained to establish relationships with children and engage them in activities that challenge them to grow spiritually, emotionally, and physically. To bring out the talents of students, our staff is trained to nurture a questioning spirit in children at their charge. A well-designed and child-safe certified premise ensures that no harm comes to little ones who take to exploring their environment, and parents are trained to nurture curiosity as a means of expanding the minds of their children.

Teaching practices: as stated above, curiosity is viewed as a critically important value in the growth and development of children. In the experience of Royalty Pre-K and the staff members who dedicatedly work there, encouraging children to question their environment develops a self-aware and responsible youth later on, and fosters creativity and interactive skills. Parent involvement in the learning of their children is another prized practise of Royalty Pre-K teaching. Children whose parents take part in their learning process have been observed to possess a greater desire to learn, the spirit of curiosity is nurtured even away from the classroom, and an all rounded individual is formed. This cannot be achieved without the input of parents, who after all play a critical role in the upbringing of their children. For parents who can, our program organises interactive classes where parents can participate in the learning process of their children once every while. Another important practice of learning practised at Royalty Pre-K is the peer environment model where children engage in play and practical learning activities with others in the classes, nurturing a tolerant and cooperative spirit from a young age. It has been proven that children who engage in interactive learning activities with others of their age nurture finer socialisation skills than those who dont. The competitiveness that comes with peer interactions, when modulated by trained staff, also nurtures children and brings out the best in them, both in the classroom and personality.

Internal Organisational Capacity

Experiences: Royalty Pre-K has been operating as a day-care centre for children between the ages of two and five for the past two years. Our main attraction to tens of parents who entrusted us with the care of their children for days at a time was the educational aspect of our classes, whereby children learned from an internally developed curricular. The premises on which our Pre-K program will be rolled out have been in use as a child-safe building for the past eighteen months since we moved there. The members of staffs at Royalty Pre-K are also trained child educators with at least a diploma in Early Childhood Development with a minimum experience of two years in kindergarten and day-care facilities. Transitioning to Pre-K education will be made easier by the experience and dedication of the team at Royal Day-care centre, a cohesive team of children lovers and educators.

Support staff: any program that is based on community development can only be as successful or as good as the people in charge and their dedication to their cause. At Royalty Pre-K, the team of two who started the institution take on two of the most important jobs aside from their classroom duties.

Danielle Watson (Chief Operations Officer)

When the two founding members came up with the idea of starting a day-care centre, it was Watson who did all the paperwork to get the small enterprise registered, drew up the business plan and handled most of the marketing work. Previously employed as an executive assistant in a mid-level tech company, Watson holds a second class degree in Business Administration from New York College of Business Administration. After Royalty Day-care started two years ago, Watson applied for a Diploma in Early Childhood Development and became a certified teacher six months later. Her job as the COO is to ensure that our institution is fully functional at all times, handling the Fire Department inspections, General Facility licencing, as well as coordinating with the Department of Education for syllabus accreditation.

Emma Davidson (Chief Finance Officer)

Even though Emma is a trained Early Childhood Development educator, she handles her job as the financial manager with unrelenting zeal and mastery. Although the job was initially handled by the COO due to her huge role in the starting up process, Emma was soon judged to be most qualified person based on her exposure to accounts and finances- brought up by certified public accountants parents and is married to a financial administrator. Apart from the free consultation available from all around her, Emma is also a certified public accountant now, having completed an online course three months ago. With five years of experience in ECD teaching, Emma has the right mix of child education and financial management to enable Royalty Pre-K become a successful Pre-K for All institution in Princes Bay.

Apart from the two founding members, the associate employees are two dedicated men and two ladies with degrees in Early Childhood Development and passion for ECD to match.

External Organisation Capacity

Past partnerships with NGOs and government: Royalty Day-care has previously worked with the Department of Early Childhood Development of New York to get a syllabus for a model similar to the Pre-K approved. In the partnership, the department field officers leased with Watson and Emma to help us acquire the right teaching material, environments, and assisted in a two day sensitisation program for the staff.

Benefits of Department of Education (DOE) partnerships: from previous experience, working with the Department of Education, especially the Division of Early Childhood Development has great advantages. Not only did we get to run programs that were readily approved by the field inspection officers, the input of staff who have worked for decades in Early Childhood Development proved to be very instrumental to the success of our own model pre-k program that has been bringing clients in greater numbers than we can accommodate. Our past consultative partnership with the Department of Education developing our own day-care syllabus operational has opened our eyes to the great benefits of working with the government to provide education for children. The enactment of the Pre-K for All program by the municipal government, heralds a great opportunity for Royalty to take advantage of our more advanced program giving the same services to expand our operations and reach a wider market.

Challenges of working with strategic partners: even though Royalty Day-care has cooperated with the Division of Early Childhood Development to create a syllabus teaching Pre-ECD children, the bureaucracy involved in working with government agencies is a big hindrance to cooperative efforts. The long process of application, waiting, and slow approval rates makes it a harder feat than Private-to-Private partnerships with other day-care centres and non-governmental organisations. Overcoming the challenge involved a persistent follow-up routine that speeds up the process of verification, processing, and approval considerably.

Effective School Leadership and Collaborative Teachers

Cultivating Professional Practice and Leadership:

1. Training for our staff is one of the most important aspects to building a positive work culture, as the staff will receive training on new, improved modes of imparting knowledge on the children. The training will also most probably involve new teaching materials that are better developed than our current internally developed curriculum, which will boost learning at Royalty Pre-K.

2. The Pre-K for All aspect of the new program, which is, not leaving out any children due to hardship in paying fees, will build cultural diversity. Cultural diversity is a challenge and a motivation as well as a learning experience, as staff members will get the opportunity to take care of children from new areas of the community, probably with different education and caregiving needs.

3. Greater focus on pre-kindergarten learning is also an important aspect of the program. Our staff is motivated by challenges, teaching children in readiness for formal education will advance the competitive culture at Royalty and drive up the quality of education offered here.

Benefits of positive work culture to the overall health of program: training is one of the most important shaper of work culture, because in imparts in the staff a mentality of always improving and taking their expertise to a new level. With free training, workshops, and seminars organised, Royalty Pre-K staff will receive a new dose of motivation to become even better children educators.

Dealing with a mor...