A special state panel formed to review Maine’s Early Childhood Learning Guidelines is seeking input from kindergarten teachers. The input will inform the panel’s revisions to the 2005 document.
The Maine Department of Education, the Department of Health and Human Services, and a Committee of Early Learning Practitioners are in the process of reviewing the State of Maine Early Childhood Learning Guidelines, which were first published in September 2005.
The document serves as a guide to help early childhood educators improve the programs and services available to children before they enter kindergarten.
The panel reviewing the learning guidelines is examining the need for revisions based on new research over the last six years and the adoption of the Common Core State Standards for English language arts and math in Maine’s K-12 school system. The Early Learning Guidelines are meant to act as a cross-systems document — to serve both DOE- and DHHS-approved early childhood programs — and to align with the Common Core State Standards.
As part of this process, the panel is seeking input regarding the types of developmental information that would be most useful to kindergarten teachers as they receive incoming kindergarteners.
The current State of Maine Early Childhood Learning Guidelines can be found at: http://www.maine.gov/education/fouryearold/guidelines.html.
To access the survey, please use the following link: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/N8DC7BJ
The deadline to complete the survey is Oct. 28, 2011.