Continuing Education
PR Newswire | January 09, 2024
Today, Collaborative Classroom and FluentSeeds announce a merger into a single nonprofit organization to serve educators and other adults responsible for nurturing children's language, literacy, and social and emotional learning from birth through grade 8. With this merger, Collaborative Classroom is uniquely positioned to provide seamless support for children from birth through early childhood and beyond, ensuring kindergarten readiness and long-term academic success.
Collaborative Classroom's evidence-based literacy and social and emotional learning programs and wraparound professional learning serve students and educators in grades K–8, with some programs extending through grades 9–12. Collaborative Classroom is one of the largest education nonprofits in the country, supporting educators in all 50 states in over 1,000 school districts.
FluentSeeds supports adults, including parents, family and community members, child care providers, and other educators, with ©SEEDS of Learning, a rigorously-researched and proven set of literacy and social and emotional frameworks for children from birth through age 5. FluentSeeds currently serves more than 4,000 adults and 30,000 children in a variety of environments including home, community child care, pre-kindergarten, transitional kindergarten, and K–2.
On a daily basis, this newly merged organization already impacts nearly 2 million children across the nation.
Collaborative Classroom President and CEO Kelly Stuart says, "Bringing FluentSeeds into the Collaborative Classroom family of programs is especially exciting because it allows us to support children throughout their earliest years—a long-term goal of our organization. We know how crucial the first five years are for children's social, emotional, and early literacy development. FluentSeeds' expertise and offerings perfectly position us to serve even more children."
Stuart adds, "Collaborative Classroom's and FluentSeeds' instructionally aligned and consistent, research-based frameworks are already used together with great success in schools and districts across the country. Recently, The Oakland REACH released a study on the impact of their tutoring programs that utilize SEEDS and our SIPPS® program. We are confident this merger will impact children from the beginning of their literacy journey and ensure their success as confident, fluent readers."
FluentSeeds Executive Director Kate Horst says, "The gift of SEEDS and its impact on early literacy and social-emotional development will continue to spread in an ever-widening circle, thanks to Collaborative Classroom's mission, people, programs, and professional learning. Their deep literacy expertise and commitments to evidence and impact align with our strong foundations of birth to kindergarten professional development and SEEDS quality interactions. We are delighted to bring our FluentSeeds staff, friends, and partnerships into Collaborative Classroom's excellent programming and far-reaching impact."
The new organization will operate under the banner of Collaborative Classroom, and Kelly Stuart will continue to serve as President and CEO. FluentSeeds' Executive Director, Kate Horst, will serve as both a senior advisor and a member of the Collaborative Classroom Board of Trustees.
Susan Wally, Chair of the Collaborative Classroom Board of Trustees, says, "On behalf of the entire board, I want to welcome Kate Horst to our board and share our excitement and optimism as Collaborative Classroom expands its ability to support young learners through this merger with FluentSeeds. These two extraordinary organizations share a commitment to helping all those who teach and support young learners to access high-impact, evidence-based strategies and quality resources. We look forward to using our combined expertise and expanded scale to build vital literacy and social-emotional skills for our youngest children, as well as those who have already begun their K–12 journey."
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Education Technology
Teaching Strategies | December 27, 2021
Teaching Strategies, the country's leading developer of early childhood curriculum, assessment, professional learning, and family engagement solutions, today announced the acquisition of Noni Educational Solutions, a trauma-focused edtech start-up that has developed a groundbreaking, app-based resource designed to support preschool-5th grade teachers working with children who have been impacted by trauma.
The solution, called noni™ for Teachers, was developed in partnership with Adventist HealthCare The Lourie Center for Children's Social & Emotional Wellness, a pioneer in research on best practices for supporting children impacted by trauma and adverse childhood experiences.
"Even prior to the pandemic, more than two-thirds of children had experienced at least one traumatic event by the age of 16," said Jimmy Venza, Ph.D., child psychologist and executive director of the Lourie Center. "In the aftermath of these past two years and the resulting stresses placed on families and children, that statistic is only likely to worsen."
"Now more than ever, teachers need and deserve our support for trauma-informed instruction and coaching. We're excited to welcome Noni Educational Solutions to the Teaching Strategies family. noni™ for Teachers fills a gap not met by any other solution in the market and gives educators the tools and support they need to care for children impacted by trauma and help them regulate behavior so they can learn."
Teaching Strategies CEO John Olsen
noni™ for Teachers is an app-based digital coach and collection of classroom teaching resources that guide teachers through providing trauma-informed instruction. The app uses real-time responsive technology, serving up immediate guidance based on teacher input and giving teachers the ability to track and even predict child behaviors that stem from exposure to toxic stress and adverse childhood experiences.
"We know from decades of research on working with young children who have been exposed to adverse childhood experiences that the teacher-child relationship can actually act as a buffer against the negative impact of trauma," said Kai-leé Berke, co-founder of Noni Educational Solutions and an author of many of Teaching Strategies' curriculum and assessment resources. "Having personally experienced traumatic circumstances as a young child, and eventually teaching and caring for young children who had also had exposure to adverse childhood experiences, I know firsthand what teachers face as students return to the traditional classroom. Addressing the lifelong mental and physical challenges that can result from trauma is essential to a student's success, and we must ensure our educators have the support to do so."
The app also provides intervention and prevention plans, whole-class guidance, support for partnering with families of trauma-impacted children, built-in teacher professional development around trauma and adverse childhood experiences, and resources that address teachers' own self-care and mental wellness.
The app and teaching resources will be available for immediate purchase by schools and programs. It seamlessly joins Teaching Strategies' family of solutions to support social-emotional learning in early childhood education including The Creative Curriculum®, Al's Pals™, GOLD®, ReadyRosie®, and professional development courses.
About Teaching Strategies
Driven by research that shows a child's first eight years form a critical foundation for success in school and in life, Teaching Strategies has been an advocate for the early education community for over 40 years. Today, Teaching Strategies connects teachers, children and families to inspired teaching and learning experiences, informative data, stronger family partnerships, and professional learning through the leading early learning platform and resources. Its products, including the most widely-used curriculum and assessment solutions The Creative Curriculum® and GOLD®, are found in over 270,000 classrooms and reach over 2 million children each year. To learn why thousands of early childhood programs and many states choose to partner with Teaching Strategies to help ensure children's success in school and in life.
About Noni Educational Solutions
Noni Educational Solutions is an education technology start-up that is developing support and resources for teachers and caregivers who have children in their classrooms who have been impacted by adverse childhood experiences. Their mission is to support teachers across the country in providing trauma-informed, relationship-based, responsive care to young children. Co-founded by Kai-leé Berke and Tia Disick, lifelong early education professionals, the company is focused on developing innovative ways to leverage the power of technology to support building the kind of safe, secure relationships between teachers and trauma-impacted young children that lay the foundation for successful content learning.
About Adventist HealthCare's The Lourie Center for Children's Social & Emotional Wellness
The Lourie Center is a private, non-profit agency with a mission to improve the social and emotional health of young children and their families through prevention, early intervention, education, research and training. It was founded in 1983 by the late Dr. Reginald S. Lourie, a world-wide leader in the fields of pediatric child psychiatry and infant mental health, and his renowned colleagues, including Dr. T. Berry Brazelton and Dr. Stanley Greenspan, as an outgrowth of their six-year clinical research project funded by the National Institute of Mental Health. Decades of extensive research confirm the impact of The Lourie Center's programs for trauma-impacted young children, including an 80% success rate in transitioning children to public school; academic and social gains; and reduced suspension and expulsion rates.
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Education Technology
ReadWorks | December 22, 2021
The edtech nonprofit ReadWorks today announces the renewal of its partnership with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF). Through the partnership, with guidance from ReadWorks on classroom and reading accessibility, NFWF uses the deep knowledge and expertise of their staff to create original content to share information on conservation nationwide with millions of students.
Stories about drone deliveries helping prairie dog populations, protecting baby sea turtles from light pollution, and inspiring kid scientists have been read by nearly 200,000 students across the country in more than 26,000 schools since the partnership began in 2018.
This year, ReadWorks and NFWF will create even more new and relevant conservation content to be featured in the ReadWorks library. To explore the texts made possible by NFWF, create your free account on ReadWorks.org.
Having NFWF content on the ReadWorks platform makes it easy for teachers to integrate informative passages into any classroom. Students across multiple grade levels engage with the most up-to-date science on conservation while building background knowledge, growing their vocabularies, strengthening strategic reading, and increasing reading quantity – the four pillars of reading comprehension that are the focus of ReadWorks' mission.
ReadWorks partners with world-class organizations such as NFWF to improve reading outcomes for students and spread important knowledge. To learn more about our content partnerships, as well as other partnership opportunities in research and development, visit our partners page.
About ReadWorks
Through its digital platform, ReadWorks provides K-12 teachers and students with the content, curricular supports, and tools they need to succeed in reading - for free. As a result, over 1 million teachers and 13.1 million students are using ReadWorks today. At ReadWorks, our mission is to ensure that all children become successful, joyful readers by working to bridge the gap between research and practice in reading instruction. Log on to ReadWorks.org to access our free resources.
About NFWF
Chartered by Congress in 1984, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) protects and restores the nation's fish, wildlife, plants and habitats. Working with federal, corporate and individual partners, NFWF has funded more than 5,000 organizations and generated a total conservation impact of $6.8 billion.
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