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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ONLINE EDUCATION
PowerSchool | June 02, 2023
PowerSchool today announced Maryvit Education Center (MEC) in Chonburi, Thailand has expanded its use of PowerSchool Schoology Learning, a key component of the PowerSchool Personalized Learning Cloud, to support K-10 students at its new campus, which opened in May 2023. With MEC’s newest campus open for the 2023-24 school year, MEC teachers will have access to intuitive tools to improve student performance, collaboration, parental and family engagement, and standards tracking.
“PowerSchool Schoology Learning played a pivotal role in our operations throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, so selecting the platform to support our new campus’ operations only made sense,” said Dr. Steven Kitikiatisak, President, Maryvit Education Center. “Schoology Learning and our PowerSchool support team have proven they can help us create better learning outcomes for our students and staff. We look forward to leveraging Schoology Learning at our newest campus in the upcoming academic year.”
Since its integration across the MEC network, Schoology Learning has helped its educators effectively manage course and material distribution. Notably, the platform helped MEC improve its hybrid learning infrastructure during the COVID-19 pandemic. Teachers were able to leverage the learning management system to create digital learning curriculums and games that increased students’ participation while remote. More broadly, Schoology also helped MEC increase parent-teacher-student communications and overall visibility into students’ progress and learning.
Further, MEC teachers predominantly teach and create all their Schoology Learning content in Thai. They launched custom Schoology Learning user guides in Thai via a YouTube channel, to support students and their fellow educators.
Maryvit Education Center is a private Catholic school network located within the Chonburi Province of Thailand. MEC provides more than 10,000 students a Thai-focused learning curriculum with an added emphasis on English and Chinese studies. The school network operates across three different campuses within the cities of Pattaya, Sattahip, and Bowin, and opened a new campus in Nikhom Pattana, Rayong in May 2023.
About PowerSchool
PowerSchoolis the leading provider of cloud-based software for K-12 education in North America. Its mission is to power the education ecosystem with unified technology that helps educators and students realize their full potential, in their way. PowerSchool connects students, teachers, administrators, and parents, with the shared goal of improving student outcomes. From the office to the classroom to the home, it helps schools and districts efficiently manage state reporting and related compliance, special education, finance, human resources, talent, registration, attendance, funding, learning, instruction, grading, assessments and analytics in one unified platform. PowerSchool supports over 50 million students globally and more than 15,000 customers, including more than 90 of the top 100 districts by student enrollment in the United States, and sells solutions in more than 90 countries.
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TALENT DEVELOPMENT
Businesswire | April 10, 2023
Brightwheel, the leading all-in-one early education platform, today announced that it has acquired Experience Early Learning, a nationally recognized brand that produces a comprehensive research-based early education curriculum and assessment system. Through the acquisition, brightwheel is merging the best of physical and digital learning tools for the first time as it advances its mission to deliver high quality early education for every child.
“Young children need to learn in-person with physical materials that they can touch and feel,” said Dave Vasen, Founder and CEO of brightwheel. “The merging of physical and digital will save providers many hours each month, improve the classroom learning experience, and even extend it to the home, all through the brightwheel platform. I couldn’t be more excited to bring these two companies together and completely rethink what’s possible in early ed.”
Aligned with NAEYC, Common Core, Head Start, and all 50 states’ early learning standards, Experience Early Learning covers all areas of development including social-emotional, physical, language & literacy, math & reasoning, science, social studies, and creative arts, designed for infants through pre-K aged children. This leading program provides a monthly toolkit with everything a teacher needs to bring the curriculum to life in the classroom, including hands-on materials such as books, music, posters, art supplies, games, and workbooks, each tailored for specific ages.
Brightwheel allows preschool administrators and teachers to manage everything that happens day-to-day such as billing, enrollment, attendance, compliance, and communications all through the brightwheel app. Teachers can easily capture learning moments in real time through photos and videos, take notes, track child development, and conduct assessments. Brightwheel is the first and only platform where teachers can automatically share prewritten notes with parents that help to continue the learning at home.
Experience Curriculum is now live on brightwheel for Preschool and Toddler levels, with Baby coming in the future. Benefits of the newly integrated offering include:
• Elevated quality of learning during the most critical first five years of a child’s development with a professional, research-based curriculum aligned to all 50 state standards.
• Makes teachers’ jobs less time consuming and more rewarding, thereby improving staff retention at a time when turnover in the industry is at an all time high.
• Greater engagement from families in their child’s learning through automated sharing of progress, photos and updates in real-time.
As brightwheel invests in expanding its curriculum offering, it has appointed Julie DeLoyd as Head of brightwheel Education, responsible for leading and scaling the company’s education business. DeLoyd joins brightwheel from developmental toy company Melissa & Doug where she served as Chief Strategy and Transformation Officer.
“I have long admired brightwheel’s dedication to improving the early education experience for children, families, and teachers,” said DeLoyd, Head of brightwheel Education. “For the first time ever, there is a one-stop destination for everything education providers need, empowering them to focus on what they do best. I am proud to join this talented team as brightwheel scales its education offering and improves the quality of early learning.”
About Brightwheel
Brightwheel is the complete preschool and childcare platform providing everything educators need to easily run their program all in one place. Quick to set up and even easier to use, brightwheel’s #1 rated platform enables providers to save time, get paid faster, connect with families and staff, and support child development. Trusted by millions of educators and families across North America, brightwheel is committed to elevating the early learning experience for every child.
About Experience Early Learning
Experience Early Learning is a research-based early education program that fosters a joy for learning through sensory-based experiences. Since 1984, this nationally recognized curriculum system has supported children’s social-emotional, physical, and cognitive development. Monthly thematic kits with lesson plans and hands-on learning materials support teachers in and out of the classroom and encourage learning through play. Experience Early Learning is a community of educators with a mission to help children embrace their unique strengths, grow confidence, and love others.
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