| ACCD
News & Events
SPC
Acknowledges First Early Childhood Studies Graduating
Class
Announces Plans to
Collaborate with PCI, UTSA will Educate More Head
Start Teachers
November
9, 2005
CONTACT: Roland Ruiz, Director of Public Relations,
St. Philip's College
210/531-4851
rruiz@accd.edu
Pictured:
Early Childhood Studies first graduating class
St.
Philip’s College acknowledged its first graduating
class in Early Childhood Studies with a reception
on Wednesday, Nov. 9, and used the special occasion
to announce a new collaboration with Parent/Child
Inc.(PCI) and the University of Texas at San Antonio
(UTSA) aimed at educating more Head Start teachers
in the area. Project Advance, as the new initiative
is called, will serve as an academic model to increase
the number of Head Start and Early Head Start teachers
with bachelor’s degrees in reading and early
education. The program will be funded by a five-year
$728,235 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
grant, awarded recently to St. Philip’s College.
"This
is a tremendous period of growth for us in early childhood
education," said Pamela Ray, director of the
St. Philip’s College Early Childhood Studies
Program. "The fact that we are celebrating our
first graduates and also announcing Project Advance
shows that as a college and a community we are making
strides toward meeting the developmental needs of
our children, and that’s good news for all of
us."
Through
Project Advance, PCI Head Start and Early Head Start
teachers will be recruited and retained to complete
their coursework for an associate of Applied Science
degree in Early Childhood Studies at St. Philip’s
College, and then guided to transfer to and graduate
from UTSA where they will earn the bachelor of Applied
Arts and Science in Language and Literacy with an
emphasis in Reading and Early Childhood Education.
Project
Advance specifically addresses PCI’s need to
increase the number of teachers with bachelor’s
degrees in order to be in compliance with the proposed
2003 School Readiness Act, which will require 50 percent
of all teachers employed by Head Start and Early Head
Start programs to have a bachelor’s degree and
the other 50 percent to have an associate’s
degree. As the only Head Start and Early Head Start
program in the San Antonio and Bexar County area,
PCI serves approximately 7,000 children and employs
436 teachers. At present, 62 percent of PCI teachers
are child development associate credentialed (not
degreed), 12 percent have associate’s degrees,
and 26 percent have bachelor’s degrees.
In
its first year, Project Advance expects to engage
project participants at two levels: 14 at the associate
degree-seeking level who will attend St. Philip’s
and then transfer to UTSA to complete their bachelor’s
degree; and five at the bachelor’s degree-seeking
level who will enroll at UTSA. By 2010, the program
expects to have graduated 17 PCI teachers from UTSA
with a BAAS degree in Language and Literacy with an
emphasis in Reading and Early Childhood Education.
The
nine graduates of the St. Philip’s Early Childhood
Studies program are qualified for, but not be limited
to, employment as a lead teacher of a Head Start center,
director of a center, a program coordinator, or a
trainer with Head Start. St. Philip’s College
first offered a one-year Child Development Associate
(CDA) certificate program in fall 2000 and then added
a full-fledged Early Childhood Studies program offering
an associate’s degree in spring 2002.
St.
Philip’s College, one of the Alamo Community
Colleges serving the greater Bexar County region,
is a comprehensive community college designated as
both a Historically Commission on Colleges of the
Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.
|
