LAEP Tries to Make Transitions Between Grades Easier For Students

Transitions are difficult for people at any age, but for children the transitions from preschool to kindergarten, elementary to middle school, and from middle to high school often are emotionally and intellectually daunting. Negotiating these transitions well can add to a child's ability to do well throughout his or her school career. More often than not these transitions are rocky.

"You would be surprised at the lack of communication between grades," said Judy Johnson, vice president of the Los Angeles Educational Partnership, a non-profit education reform group which is working at various levels to strengthen that communication. "Research shows that if you give children a strong foundation in pre-k and in kindergarten, it will increase their chances of success in the later grades."

To further that communication, LAEP is working with teachers and administrators in the former Manual Arts Cluster to bring teachers from children's centers and kindergartens together to discuss how to prepare children to transition to kindergarten. These teachers are learning how to work together to assess their schools' educational programs and analyze current student performance so that students can make a smooth transition to the next grade.

"The goal of these meetings is to open a dialogue with each other," said Barbara Erdman, a 30-year teaching veteran at Weemes Elementary School in Los Angeles. "If we can take a look at what we're teaching as a group, then we can find common threads and develop future curriculum to meet state standards."

Teachers involved in LAEP's Teacher Network project are also realizing the value of improved articulation. About twenty teachers from Broadous Children's Center and Broadous Elementary School in Pacoima have formed a network specifically targeted toward transitioning students. They meet regularly to discuss common curriculum and standards alignment.

LAEP's Family Care program, through its School Readiness Project, sets the foundation for learning at an early age. Paraprofessionals work with parents and their zero- to three-year-old children at home to prepare them for school. School Readiness staff teaches parents how to work with their children in fun and creative ways to stimulate learning and develop needed learning skills at home.

"The parent or caregiver is a child's first and most important teacher," says School Readiness coordinator Josephina Sapriza. "The first years of a child's life have a profound and lasting impact on a child's ability to learn. Many young children come to school and don't have good language development, which is the building block to good reading skills."

At the high school level, LAEP's Career Academy program is helping students transition from high school to college and the workplace. Academies in Finance and Travel and Tourism combine specialized curricular programs and technical classes in a specific discipline with internships designed to familiarize students with the range of careers available within a given industry and to prepare them with the skills necessary for entry level work.

LAEP is investigating the possibility of establishing formal relationships with the 11 new LAUSD sub- districts and possibly private schools to further dialogue on K-12 articulation, Johnson said.

"We know that children develop at different rates, but if you develop a solid program and use it successfully, then the children are the winners," said Michael Haggood, principal at Normandie Children's center and a proponent of aligning standards.

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