In this assignment, you will use the following transferable skills: Communication Critical thinking Digital fluency Ethics and professional responsibilityYou will use these skills to contribute to
Advocacy & Legislation in Early Childhood Education
Advocating for Early Childhood Education
Rasmussen College
COURSE#: EEC 4910
Doreen Anzalone
July 15, 2019
Advocating for Early Childhood Education
What is advocacy?
Advocacy is how we support our children. We as teachers give advice for our children or we listen. We let the children and families know that we believe in them and we will be there for them. Teachers, admin, staff can advocate for children as long as they are in school. Advocates are also trained people and they are not lawyers. One of their responsibility is to stay up to date with the regulations of the educational laws.
Why is advocacy important to early childhood education?
Its important to help the families because they might be vulnerable in society. We as teachers need to make sure our children and families are being heard. We as teachers need to make sure their wishes and views are being considered when it’s about their child or family. Its because we are helping the family make life decisions about their children and even their family life. Its also important to make sure we are not judging the family or having or our own personal opinions about what is going on when we are helping advocate for the family, we need to make sure we are stating the facts for the family.
What is your role as an early childhood educator in making legislative changes?
Our role is to be able to email them or decide how to get a hold of them and let them know our questions, comments or suggestions on things that need to be changed, updated. We need to let them know so we can support our school, children, and families. It is our role as educators to stay aware of the laws. The Federal laws we need to make sure we are aware of the
Family Education Rights & Poverty Act
The No Child Left Behind
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
With these laws and many more they need to hear from schools in the United States. The federal laws mean we need to address the issues. These issues usually involve infringement of the student’s rights and they are to protect the rights. The state laws depend on the state you are in. The state laws this is where you would go if you have a problem or need to voice about
Teacher Retirement
Teacher evaluations
Charter schools
State Testing requirements
The required learning standards
Much more
Your school board is also a great place to help with policies and regulations and any revisions that need to be done.
What ethical issues must early childhood education professionals consider related to advocacy and why do those issues exit?
In NAEYC the code of Ethical Conduct and in their it describes how any educator is required to act and what they do and not to do. At times as an educator as staff we tend to do what is the simplest or sometimes, we want to please others but when it comes to this, we must remember to follow our responsibilities and follow the code of conduct. Advocacy is important but we need to make sure we are always remembered to have confidentiality when dealing in these situations and we always need to have the appropriate paperwork like signed release requests before we can just talk to anybody about what is going on with the family
What strategies/tips would you use to help families advocate for their children.
I would let them know that they need to be kept informed, they need to build a relationship with child’s teachers they need to be and stay part of the team, know their child’s rights, they need to remember to talk to their child, stay clam and remember to ask questions when they have them. I would let them know that I can go to meetings with them and help them where they need the support. I can write a letter and support them that way if they feel I do not need to go to the direct meeting with them.
Part 2 of Assignment
Parent Involvement is so important due to the more parents stay involved the better we will have achievement. Parents involvement it helps their child stay in school more and not want to skip school as much which means better attendance. Your child tends to have higher grades when parents are involved it shows better social skills for their children and they tend to have better behavior so at the end of the day, week, year your child will be better off if you are involved and stay involved as much as you can. We also have families where dads tend not to want to be in the picture of their child and they need to stay involved for the child it helps the child earn better grades, helps keep children out of jail, teenage pregnancies, earn higher degrees and go on to school, they tend not to have to repeat a level in school so all in all I understand it is hard work and takes time but please stay involved in your child’s time at school.
Part 3 Assignment
To whom it may concern,
I am Jessica Gauthier. I am a teacher for Head Start. I have worked for a Head Start program for nine years. I have earned my Associate Degree and will be receiving my Bachelor’s Degree in September 2019.
I am writing due to the reduced nutrition meals that children are receiving in schools and how families can't afford the meals at school. Breakfast and lunch at school might be the only meals that children receive. We at school are serving our children a lot of prepackaged food; this is not nutritious at all, and we sometimes wonder why we have a rise in child obesity in the United States. The prepacked food does not help with the brain development of our children and how does that help with our children being able to concentrate in school or get good grades.
We need a way to help fund our schools better and provided better on packaged foods for our children. We do have such programs as Farm to School, Farm to Institution Purchasing. We need to have more advocate for our USDA program.
We need to provide our schools with more training and technical assistant and more money or grants to provided better food for our children. We need parents to come and eat the meals and be able to advocate for their child on how much-prepacked menu their child is eating. We need to come up with a program that allows all children to be able to have free breakfast, lunch, and even maybe a snack. I think that if this should vary state to state and county to the county due to the counties being in poverty should get free breakfast, lunch, snack yes, we have some counties that do not need it. I feel we should not be limiting children who forget their money at home or their meal ticket that child should be able to eat anyways. This would include all children despite race, sex, color. I want to sit down and discuss more options with you and hear more of your opinions on some of the suggestions you must be able to help change things.
Sincerely,
Jessica Gauthier
References
The Enduring Importance of Parental Involvement. (2015, April 29). Retrieved from http://neatoday.org/2014/11/18/the-enduring-importance-of-parental-involvement-2/
Making Healthy School Lunches Free for All Should Be a National Priority. (2018, December 21). Retrieved from https://civileats.com/2018/12/14/making-healthy-school-lunches-free-for-all-should-be-a-national-priority/
NAEYC. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.naeyc.org/resources/pubs/yc/mar2016/ethical-responsibilities-dilemmas
School Meals - FAQs. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.fns.usda.gov/school-meals/faqs
Teaching Strategies that Advocate Your Students. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.teachhub.com/teaching-strategies-advocate-your-students
What is advocacy? (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.seap.org.uk/im-looking-for-help-or-support/what-is-advocacy.html
