The leadership and staff at Harrison Preschool work hard to provide students with a caring, safe, effective learning environment focused on preparing children for their future life and learning. The Arkansas LEARNS Act of 2023 reorganized and restructured protocols, placing early childhood programs (including preschools) under the authority of the state Department of Education.
LEARNS also provided a new and improved assessment system for preschools - the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS). The assessment tool that was formerly used focused primarily on classroom environment and organization (height of cafeteria tables, number of blocks in the classroom, number of seconds a child washes his/her hands, etc.).
The new CLASS assessment tool focuses primarily on interactions. Research by the American Psychological Association (AMA) states that "positive teacher-student relationships draw students into the process of learning and promote their desire to learn. Students who have close, positive, and supportive relationships with their teachers will attain higher levels of achievement than those students with more conflict in their relationships. Improving students' relationships with teachers has important, positive and long-lasting implications for both students' academic and social development."
The CLASS evaluation process was multifaceted, including innovative technologies called talk pedometers. Harrison Preschool completed the first year of the new evaluations in November. Today, the results are in and we are so proud to announce that Harrison Preschool received rankings above national averages in almost every category!
Domain One - Emotional Support - 6.62 (national average - 6.03)
Dimension 1 - Positive Climate - a perfect 7! (national average - 5.98)
Dimension 2 - Educator Sensitivity - a perfect 7! (national average - 5.88)
Dimension 3 - Child Perspective - 5.5 (national average 5.3)
Domain Two - Classroom Organization - 6.6 (national average - 5.78)
Dimension 1 - Behavior Management - 6.5 (national average 5.96)
Dimension 2 - Productivity - a perfect 7! (national average is 6.07)
Dimension 3 - Instructional Learning Format - 6.5 (national average 5.32)
Domain Three - Instructional Support - 2.83 (national average - 2.94)
Dimension 1 - Concept Development - 2.25 (national average - 2.46)
Dimension 2 - Quality of Feedback - 3.75 (national average - 2.90)
Dimension 3 - Language Modeling - 2.5 (national average 3.45)
"To say I'm proud is an understatement. To be above average in almost every dimension is good to see. I have an incredible staff who work so hard and truly CARE about their students", said Preschool Director, Jenny Cowling.