Texas School Ready!™

Community-Based School Readiness Integration Partnerships: Promoting Sustainable Collaborations.

This guide builds upon the legislative, state agency, and community efforts to create a seamless, integrated, birth to age five early childhood education system. The purpose of this guide is to:
  • (a) describe the need for school readiness integration partnerships within the context of a rapidly changing demographic environment;
  • (b) define community-based partnerships and provide current and potential community-based partners with an understanding of the prevalent types of partnership models that exist in local communities;
  • (c) provide current and future community-based partners with a Texas specific, research-based, collaboration process guide that will allow them to work toward sustainable outcomes for children; and
  • (d) highlight successful community-based partnerships in Texas and locally-adaptable tools that assist in the collaboration process. This guide represents data collected from over 100 stakeholders from throughout Texas.

Professionals with expertise in various aspects of early childhood education were interviewed in both individual and group settings. The 8-step process developed in this guide to serve as a model for the collaboration process is based on these interviews. Download and view "Promoting Sustainable Collaborations" pdf

Community Tools for Promoting Sustainable Collaborations

There are eight steps to promoting sustainable, quality collaborations. Below is a list of resources and tools developed by communities to help guide your community in its own unique school readiness integration effort.

STEP 1 - Assess Community Needs
The following four tools can assist communities collect relevant local data in order to assess needs and help determine areas for potential school readiness integration partnerships.

STEP 2 - Identify and Recruit Partners
The companion documents below outline sample partner characteristics and a formal application to become a school readiness integration partner.

STEP 3 - Build Trust and Relationships
The tools in this section go hand-in-hand and outline a specific process for resolving conflicts within a partnership project.

STEP 4 - Develop Common Vision and Goals
The nine tools included in this section can assist in designing comprehensive integrated services.

STEP 5 - Finance the Partnership
The resources in this section include tools created at both the local level as well as policy explanations provided by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families and are designed to assist partnerships share and maximize resources.

STEP 6 – Delineate Roles and Responsibilities
Sample Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and detailed service agreement documents are shared here and serve as examples.

STEP 7 - Ensure Quality
A comprehensive Teacher Resource Guide is provided in this section and can serve as the foundation for staff orientations and trainings of staff involved in a school readiness integration partnership.  This Guide includes an overview of various program standards, sample daily schedules, effective communication techniques, ethical behavior in the workplace, the core components of the Texas Early Education Model (TEEM) and more.

STEP 8 - Sustain the Partnership
This staff training provides a comprehensive professional development opportunity for individuals participating in a school readiness integration partnership and includes an overview of child care, Head Start, and pre-k program standards, collaborative policies, professional conduct in the workplace, sample daily schedule of an integrated classroom, example classroom scenarios for co-teachers to discuss and more.

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