On March 13, 2020, we temporarily closed our doors to the families of MILE Preschool due to the pandemic. It was one of the hardest decisions we made after 15 years of ongoing service and quality preschool to our families as MILE Preschool. However, once we made that announcement to close on that Friday afternoon, the head teachers of our 5 MILE Preschool locations worked diligently on providing a virtual platform for all their students by Monday, March 16th! We never skipped a beat and provided the smoothest transition possible for these children whose worlds changed overnight! Over 100 MILE Preschool students were given a Google doc that were filled with daily live recordings from their head teacher. Each day, they were provided with 2 projects, 2 circle times and an extra link to supplement the unit of the month. The students received project packets delivered to their doorsteps so they could create artwork and individual masterpieces alongside their teacher on this virtual platform. For 3 months, we provided a 100% distant learning of age appropriate activities and instruction to each student as we modified our outdoor setting to meet the safety protocols and modifications for reopening. We never stopped providing videos even during our Spring Break, as our goal was to provide consistency and reliability for our students who were stuck at home.
Finally, on May 16th, we re-opened our doors with a whole new approach of utilizing our outdoor area and created a fully functioning outdoor classroom to provide the safest environment for the children and teachers. During 2020, we learned so many valuable lessons from this pandemic. But the most important was to LISTEN intentionally and equally to all our families. We LISTENED as they expressed their needs, concerns, anxiety and confusion. We LISTENED to every story and situation as each one was different from the others. For this reason, MILE Preschool provided several options such as in person, virtual, and hybrid. We offered 100% outdoor classroom, small group rotations, and even hired more teachers for sanitation and safety of the indoor/outdoor classroom. After a year of accommodations, we have no regrets and will continue to serve our families based on the needs of each child.
As the pandemic continues, our professional growth ignites a new passion and our desire to help the children of the community increases. One of the MILE owners returned back to college to get her Master’s degree in Applied Behavior Analysis. She wants to better understand the behavior of our children and develop treatment plans to help improve the communication and behavior skills necessary for success in their personal lives. During our monthly virtual staff meetings, she shares with our teachers about how behaviors elicit emotions within us and how it has everything to do with our environment. Each meeting, she dives deeper into the basic 4 functions of our behavior. Does the child act this way to gain sensory stimulation? Does the child behave this way to gain access to attention or a tangible item? Does the child act this way to escape sensory stimulation? Does the child act this way to escape an aversive event? We also share our behavior observation reports so we can understand the behavior and functions of our students. Another owner is now being trained in the Barton intervention program which is an intense multi-sensory method used to teach reading to students that struggle with reading and spelling. All the MILE Preschool teachers continue to work on the teaching pyramid module for the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning offered by Quality Count. Our professional growth within MILE Preschool is so important due to the anxiety driven by this pandemic.
In addition to professional growth goals, each MILE teacher has a specific focus word for 2021. We spend time communicating our monthly self-care strategies and keep each other accountable by checking in and asking each other reflecting questions every 2 weeks. Our latest mental care question is “What strategies do you use to decompress after a teaching day?” With this question, it generated answers from locking oneself in the closet to drinking a cup of tea and relaxing. The most popular answer was going for a walk and exercising. So as we give ourselves to the children of MILE Preschool, we also slowly become experts to our mental and emotional wellbeing by LISTENING to our temple, heart and spirit. Our MILE Preschool word for 2021 is LISTEN and we shall continue to do this daily.