Bay Area Early Childhood Education Directors, recipients of Jewish LearningWorks’ 2024-25 ECE experimentation micro-grants.
By Ellen Lefkowitz, Jewish LearningWorks’ Senior Educator, and Board President of the Early Childhood Educators of Reform Judaism (ECE-RJ)
As part of Jewish LearningWorks’ participation in ElevatEd, a national project to recruit and retain early childhood educators, we received funds to develop an experimentation grant in our East Bay early childhood community. The purpose of the grant was to support schools in the areas of recruitment, retention, and/or family engagement. With some additional funds, we expanded the grant to our whole Bay Area early childhood community and invited schools to apply for a microgrant of $3,000 – $5,000 to develop an innovative project in the areas of staff recruitment, staff retention, staff mentorship or family engagement.
Nine schools received microgrants; the majority focused on developing in-person, professional development opportunities for their staff. As one director said, “We never have enough [money] for professional development.” These funds allowed schools to bring teachers together in ways they otherwise would not be able to, whether by offering a series of lunch and learn gatherings or bringing in a coach or outside consultant for monthly meetings. The professional development focused on enhancing the staff’s Jewish content knowledge, creating child-centered invitations to engage in play, coaching for lead teachers, and Israel education. Teachers across classrooms had the ability to connect and do hands-on learning together.
In addition to professional development, one school focused on supporting the mental health of their teachers and noticed the positive impact on the teachers’ interactions with their students. Another school created a “professional learning lab” for their staff to have a dedicated space to plan, reflect, and collaborate with colleagues. Finally, a school developed new family Shabbat programming to welcome families to celebrate Shabbat with their community while also supporting teachers in gaining more ownership of Shabbat celebrations in their classrooms.
In our recent gathering with the leadership of these schools, they noted that these opportunities to support their teachers are critical to retaining and recruiting staff. These ongoing, meaningful investments in the professional growth of teachers, build strong school communities for the children, families and staff. It was an honor to be able to fund these experimental, innovative and impactful programs. Given the impact of these microgrants, we are in the process of developing a new round of microgrants for the year ahead.
