On Thursday, February 22nd, 2018 the Curriculum Committee meeting of the Trumbull Board of Education was held in Trumbull Early Childhood Education centre library at 8:15 AM. Although normally, the curriculum committee meetings are held at Trumbull high school, since this meeting was mainly about the revised curriculum for 3 years old and 4 years old students in Early Childhood centres, the committee changed the location for the meeting for better on-site observation.
There were three members from the board of education, the director for special education from the education department, the principle for Trumbull Early Childhood Education centre and two teachers from Early Childhood Education centre were present in the committee.
The main topic of today’s meeting was, first, discuss the unified pre-kindergarten curriculum guide and second, report, assistant superintendent of instruction and assessments.
Ms Heather Hart and Ms. Ellen Miller, who are both part of the curriculum writing team were present at the meeting and both of them talked about their part in the new curriculum guide. Ms Miller presented the mathematics curriculum for 3 years old students. Her presentation mainly talked about how the learning experience support children to understand counting and cardinality which is the first strand for this age group. Then Ms Hart gave a presentation about language and art curriculum for 4 years old students. She said that the curriculum would divide students into both large and small group. They will use the big whiteboard to help the students learn how to write their names and pronounce the alphabets. She also discussed the advantage of the new smart boards that was installed in her classroom last week since the board can go down to children’s height level and it could help the students write their names and interact with teachers more efficiently. The board voted to pass the new pre-kindergarten curriculum guide that was last updated in 2011 and it will be discussed and voted in the next board of education meeting. The Trumbull Early Childhood Education centre is one of the biggest early childhood education centres in the district since they have both curriculum for mainstream students and students with special needs. If the new curriculum guide is passed in the board of education meeting, it will also be used in coordinated schools and learning centres in the area.
Then the principle of Trumbull Early Childhood Education centre talked about their budget for smart boards. Each smart board costs around 7000 thousand dollars and they are going to hold a charity campaign for the extra $20,000 they need to purchase 4 more smart boards for the classrooms on March.16th, 2018.
Then the board was given a tour of the centre. A 3 years old classroom and a 4 years old classroom were shown during the tour. Ms Hart went back to her 4 years old classroom and showed the board a part of her regular class which are teaching the students how to pronounce each alphabet and how to distinguish living and non-living things. The board was told that half of the students in the classroom needed special education service while the other half are mainstream students. However, the curriculum is designed to mix students together and made their special needs indistinguishable. There were also parents presenting in the classroom and the board was told that parents were paid to be here and they were acting as teaching assistant in the classroom.
Overall, as a local resident, I think that Trumbull early childhood education centre is doing a great job by using new technology and newly designed curriculum to guide the students in the district. Students in the centre look really happy and all the faculty that we met were very patient and kind to the students.
The agenda of the meeting can be found at Trumbull Public School website.
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