The Jewish Early Childhood Collaborative is a broad-based coalition of early childhood directors, teachers, researchers and community members working together to increase access to and enrollment in high quality Jewish early childhood education.

What we know:

• High quality early childhood education provides the foundation for helping all children achieve their developmental potential. (source: Harvard Graduate School of Education)
• Jewish early childhood programs are the gateway for long-term involvement in Jewish life.  (source: Jewish Early Childhood Education Initative)
• A majority of parents with one or more children younger than 6 say it is very (29%) or somewhat (33%) hard to find affordable child care in their community. (source: Pew Social Trends)
• In the greater Chicago area nearly 32% of Jewish families either explored both Jewish and secular preschools and chose secular, or didn't even consider Jewish preschools. 
• Despite the evidence that early childhood programs are essential to a child's development, we under appreciate (in terms of pay and professionalism) the early childhood workforce. (source: Early Childhood Workforce Index)

What we strive for: 

• Jewish early childhood experiences that are accessible (financially and geographically) to our families. 
• Early childhood programs that are financially sustainable and provide fair compensation to staff.
• Early childhood programs that aim for excellence and continue to adapt to the needs of our families.

If you are interested in getting involved or learning more, please reach out to katewarach[at]juf.org. 

On November 15th, 2018 school leaders met in Wilmette to reflect on the first year of the Jewish Early Childhood Collaborative and start to think about things to test in 2019. 

The evening started with some wine and appetizers (of course!) and a chance to walk around and learn more about each of the task forces and what was discussed during meetings. Everyone then found their table and was encouraged to build towers with materials at their tables. They were instructed to first build by themselves, and then to collaborate with the rest of the table. While the towers may not have been sturdy, they were incredible works of art! The goal was to reflect on the difference between working by yourself on a challenge and working with others. 

We then moved into learning about the activities from the task forces and what can be expected in the coming year. We broke down the work into areas where we need to learn more, and areas where we feel we are ready to try something new. 

More to Learn
We have a lot more that we need to learn. Some of the things we are going to try next year are around information gathering.

• Parent Survey - we are testing the idea of a Universal Parent Survey. This survey was created by parents, directors and by looking at national surveys. JUF will help you with the dissemination, the analysis, and thinking through next steps. The results from this survey can be used for marketing materials and for continuous improvement.
• Benchmarking Survey - There is a lot we don't know about our own operations. How are we spending money? And, more importantly, are there more efficient ways to spend money? With substantial assistance, we are going to help you collect financial and business metrics so that we can see how we, as a system, are/aren't spending money.  We can also make more strategic plans with funders to help them think through more systematic ways of helping our programs.
• Culture of Excellence - We know many of our programs measure academic and social-emotional growth. But we want to dig even further and see if there are tools out there that better capture all of the work we are doing. The Parent Survey is one aspect of this work, but we will continue to research tools and share our analysis with The Collaborative. 

More to Do
In some areas, we have enough information to be able to test new ideas. We developed these ideas in our task forces and then shared them with those it would most likely affect. In 2019 we are going to test these on a small scale (with just a few schools) so that we can see if they create the change we seek. If they do, then we will scale the ideas. If they don't, then we will share what we learn and try something else.

• All School Teacher -  We know that teacher's need additional support to be successful in their work. Sometimes they need to deal with a child that needs individual attention. Sometimes they need to write a parent an email (and it would be great if they didn't have to do that after hours!). An All School Teacher is someone who can float in and out of classrooms as needed. They work closely with educators and supports them in a variety of ways. They are there to be more than just another set of hands. The All School Teacher is there to support educators by helping them problem solve and collaborate/coordinate. We will measure the success of the All School Teacher by changes in our staff satisfaction surveys. 
• Leadership Retreat - We tested this in Summer 2018 to great response. We want to continue to bring together school leaders together to focus on building leadership competencies. We intend to expand the program by also offering individual coaching sessions for our leaders.
• School Search Web Portal - Parents have let us know that it is harder to learn about our programs than it is secular programs. We want to make learning about our programs as easy as possible. Starting in the city, we are creating a school search portal that will give parents easy access to information and will also connect them to an ECE Concierge who will contact them within 24 hours. By putting key information in front of parents and coupling that with assistance from an expert, we are hoping to increase enrollment in our city schools.

We finished the meeting by encouraging attendees to let us know what their school might be interested in testing in 2019. In the coming weeks we will have individual conversations with each of the schools to answer any questions, and we'll be ready to hit the ground running in January!

In 2016, the Education Department at JUF (previously the Community Foundation for Jewish Education) underwent a strategic planning process with our Jewish early childhood centers. This plan outlined the need for a collaborative to enhance Jewish ECE in the greater Chicago area. Please see the strategic plan below.