Preschool Standards

Our state just released voluntary pre-kindergarten standards next year. I was a bit nervous before the fact, but looking over them felt that for the most part the standards are developmentally appropriate. Actually, I was quite pleased with the thought that having standards in place might actually improve the quality of care in the state. Unfortunately, so far I haven't seen that happening. I do voluntary adhere to the standards. Initially I started out offering set standards based activities in addition to our project work, learning centers, etc. but I soon found that was not needed. The vast majority of the standards can easily be incorporated with projects and play activities, with very little advanced planning and no mandatory activities whatsoever. A few of them did require more planning & carrying out "special" activities, but they were easy to do in a low-stress manner (for example, for learning about "night and day" we had a pajama party and casually discussed things we do during the day and things we do at night--the kids loved it). This year I did developmental checklists based on the standards for each child. Next year I'm doing away with the checklists completely, and replacing them with learning stories and project documentation. I think I've finally reached the point where the parents see their children learning and progressing & don't need the "proof" that checklists offer. I will probably do checklists for the class, but again focusing on integrating the standards into existing activities that the children are already involved in rather than teaching to the standards. I think the point of standards is to ensure that children receive a quality education, and I am not against them if they are developmentally appropriate & if they do not mandate a certain curriculum approach or program. If you're up to it, I would see if you can get a group of early childhood educators together to work with the department of education and help ensure that the standards are appropriate. Our standards were a result of a joint effort between the department of health and the department of education, with the input of many early childhood experts. There is a database of the standards for different states here: http://nieer.org/standards/

The standards for Utah are available here:

http://www.schools.utah.gov/curr/preschool-kindergarten/PDF/PreKindergartenGuidelinesFINALDRAFT.pdf