Online learning growth continues, but opportunities for improvement remain

EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY

PRnewswire | March 23, 2023

Procare Solutions is pleased to offer a new way for child care centers to bolster their educational offerings by including integrated assessments within Procare's classroom management capability. With the release of Vine Assessments™, Procare Solutions has become the only provider of child care management software to offer integrated proprietary early childhood assessments for children from birth to 5 years old at no additional cost. Vine Assessments is an integrated framework that gives early childhood educators and staff a way to clearly articulate the growth and development of children in their care. It includes clear and easy childhood assessments that align with all 50 state standards and provides developmental continuums with 21 goals that apply to children from birth to age 5 as they prepare for kindergarten. "When early childhood educators can provide a robust assessment to their children and families, it elevates the learning and development of the children in their care and helps transform their businesses into true early childhood education programs," said Jon Pollock, chief product officer of Procare Solutions. With 91% agreement rate among child care professionals, Vine Assessments are easy to use and understand. Child care centers are leading providers of early childhood education and are at the forefront of addressing delays to help young learners recover from setbacks caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Children born during the pandemic are scoring lower on average on tests of gross motor, fine motor, social and problem-solving skills compared with those born before COVID-19, studies have shown. In addition to learning delays, many of these children are talking, walking and interacting later and less frequently. "Children need age-appropriate assessments well before entering kindergarten, as well as assessments that teachers of all experience levels can conduct accurately and without additional stress during their already busy days," said JoAnn Kintzel, CEO of Procare Solutions. "We are continually looking for ways to help centers foster the growth of children in their care, which is something Vine Assessments can help achieve." "The list of 21 goals is a solid list that providers will find familiar and useful. The numbering system is very intuitive and helpful for navigating the instrument," said Dr. Kristen Burmester, director of administration and operations of the early childhood education program at the University of California at Berkeley. Teachers using Procare will be able to tie their lessons and observations directly to the appropriate Vine Assessment indicator from the web-based software and Procare child care mobile app. The simplicity of the Vine Assessments for teachers is what won over Melissa L. Hood, director of early childhood education at the Calvert School in Baltimore. Her center uses Vine Assessments for all 150 kids at their two centers. "Assessments provided by the state were too cumbersome and more suited to elementary school-aged children," she said. "They sometimes were 15 pages long and too difficult for parents to decipher." A childhood assessment conducted through Vine Assessments offered a better alternative. "It's to the point, it's accurate, it relates to age-appropriateness," she said. "Our teachers like Vine Assessments much better than the state-provided assessments." About Procare Solutions For more than 30 years, Procare Solutions has been the leading provider of child care management software, family engagement, integrated payment processing, technology and services. Procare is used by two out of three child care businesses that use child care management software. The company supports more than 37,000 child care centers, preschools, daycares, after school programs, camps and related facilities with comprehensive software that has the power to manage every aspect of their business, enrich classroom and family interactions, and automate the payment process. Procare offers web-based, on-premises and cloud-hosting solutions and supports customers of all sizes from single-center operations to complex multinational enterprises.

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