next door. Who are you? Sure. Next door, Milwaukee is a foundation, an education
foundation. We have two major centers where we serve upwards of a thousand
children along with our our partnerships. We have 13 partnerships. So we have two
major centers, 29th Street and Capitol. Those are two locations. And then we
also have early Head Start and Head Start grants with 13 partnerships that
we have. And we also have our home base program where we serve, I believe, about
200 children currently. Okay. And where how do you select who gets to come here?
It's a pretty beautiful facility. It is. It is. It really is based on where a
people live and then if they are eligible for Head Start or early Head Start. So
that is an income-based question. Okay. But otherwise they're coming from
roughly the around the neighborhood. Absolutely. This is a community-based. Yes.
So in terms of the classroom that we saw this morning, is that a general
classroom or what were we seeing in there? Yeah. We were seeing fun. So just a
wonderful classroom, an early Head Start classroom. And we say that early
Head Start because that's our grant. And that was a two-year-old kind of a
toddler classroom. And it had three teachers and a coach working in there
this morning. And they are doing Lina this morning. So you could tell they had
the little vests on and inside those little vests are these little recording
devices. And they are actually recording the frequency of the interactions
between the teachers and the children. So talk to me about what Lina is and then
how Lina gave a partner with what you're doing here. Lina is an amazing program
that we were actually part of a research piece about two years ago with the
University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, a researcher from there and a researcher
from our cat and Lina. And we loved it so much that we made it sustainable
practice. So we do Lina specifically in classrooms with twos in them, meaning
two-year-olds. And we focused on two-year-olds because as we were walking
through the COVID times, we noticed kind of a dip right before our two-year-olds
and in communication. And then as they were coming through twos into just the
next couple months, we know that that's a critical time for our children because
that's actually when they start to put words together and and may start like
beginning sentence structure. So this was a really important time to catch them
and do more communication with them. So is Lina a program or a group or is it
all? Lina is actually a way it's a coaching. It's a form of coaching. And
basically what we do is we collect the data from the frequency of interactions
between the teachers and the child and then we have a coach that coaches and
debriefs with the teachers around that data that is given to us through the
Lina program and that data helps us to set goals for the teachers and then they
work weekly on those goals. So it's really exciting. What did you see in that
early in the first year or two of the program that made you feel like this is
something we want to do permanently? Oh that's a great question. We saw first of
all teachers interacting with the Lina program being very excited about their
data, being challenged by their data, enjoying the coaching around that. The
teachers sharing the information and data for their individual child with
parents and giving parents some things they could do at home to also reinforce
some of that communication. We also saw for our children we saw an increase
especially in the children that really were maybe not as verbal, not as
expressive. We saw an increase, a pretty significant increase in the amount of
interactions. So the teachers were doing very targeted interactions with children
and trying to increase that opportunity for them to be expressive. So is it it's
a coaching system for the teachers is it more it helps the teachers understand
what's going on so they can do a better job with the kids? Yes. Yes. So it's very
informed data for our teachers. So we talk about data informed practice. This is
data informed practice. So we are doing the best of data informed practice and
the teachers love it. In fact they actually enjoy even doing coaching as
teams. So if they choose to be in a team they can have that done also and they
really enjoy that because they even get really excited about seeing how they
can improve. So part of the story that we're working on looks at the the
broader delays that are being noticed in young children today coming out of the
pandemic. I'm assuming you've identified in scenes of those same things. Yes. So
maybe talk to me a little more broadly about what what you're seeing or when
you first started noticing that that uptick. We noticed that I came aboard
next door June of 2022 right in the middle of the pandemic and started
looking at the data right away. As a director of educational services I have
access to a lot of the assessments that we do in the results and we were seeing
certain areas not it not as bad as some situations that we were hearing
nationwide. We actually did pretty well through COVID and I have to say a lot of
it is because maybe we were open. We offered intensive services too. But this
Lena was part of that. So we started seeing dips especially dips in
communication. So many of the teachers talked about the the children being
quiet. We also referenced that the teachers were being a little bit more
quiet. So we were so used to having the masks on and we really needed even when
the masks came off to get back into those habits of communicating verbally and
that was a practice we had to get back to. So this was a way that our teachers
reinforced that they had to do something that they were you know committed to
doing and also helping our children to have that more opportunity to interact
and build communication. What is the difference it can make for a child over
the course of their time here and then obviously into the rest of their life if
they if a delay isn't caught or if a delay isn't worked on or is allowed to
remain. We know so much about that now. We know that early communication
affects children's communication throughout their life that that is
connected language is directly connected to literacy. Literacy is a
foundation of all the other academic areas that a child will get into. So if
they don't have access into strong literacy skill sets then they're really
they could really significantly be impacted academically in that and that
is directly connected to everything from graduation rates to to whether or
not children stay in school whether or not they feel connected to their
system in school and excited about their future. So all of that has a lot to do
with that early communication. We also know that early communication in itself
allows a child to feel like less frustration. So if they're able to verbalize
or at least find a way to express and be understood we have less social
emotional issues and we did see an increase in social emotional concerns
right as the as COVID was rolling out. So so much of this was all happening at
once that there were a lot of conspiracy theories surrounding COVID and you know
vaccines and masks and isolation and then the exacerbating the issues
surrounding you know wealth inequality and other kind of gaps that exist already
in some of those barriers. Is there a way to separate any of those out to find
out what was actually happening in causing this? And in causing the
communication issues. Yeah some of these delays the dips that we're being
seized. Yeah actually we do know because of the
Lina data that has been shared with us because we are we are one of the sites
where the research was done. We do know we have a significant data pool to pull
from and see that that during COVID we were directly impacted. The masking
did make a significant difference as we are now seeing also the trends in
children's understanding of literacy. Later on we're also seeing that that
not having it early on is making an impact those communication
gaps are pretty significant. So we are seeing it so nationwide you're hearing
terms like COVID babies. So we know that we are seeing an increase in
social emotional challenges nationwide. We are seeing nationwide an increase in
literacy issues and actually literacy dropping. That's why we came in really
solidly and said we're not going to let that happen.
We're going to come in strong and we're going to come in with every way we can
to support and intervene prior to that happening so that our children have
everything they need to succeed. And being in early head start and head start
we know that we also have situations of economic disadvantage our families
have situations that you know can impact our children and absolutely that makes
it I think even more critical that we take this very seriously and do
everything we can to make sure our children go into kindergarten first
grade ready to go. How much of this are you able to send home to parents so
that they because obviously you can't do everything here. Yeah they spend most of
their time at home with family. Absolutely quite a lot. We have a strong
relationships with our families. Head Start really solidly is always based
on family and community. So we not only have a wonderful relationship with
families we have family advocates for every classroom
we have our teachers committed to connecting with the families on a daily
basis and we even have apps we have we're on TikTok now
Facebook we do everything we can to connect with our families.
So that's and we've been open so our families come through
for most of COVID so that's been a huge huge piece of that.
But we also have community members that come in and we really do believe that
we could not do our work without the village that and the community that
helps us to do our work well. So I know I've got more people that are
going to give me more insight from their levels. Is there anything else that you'd
like to add along the lines of what we've been talking about?
I think Lina is an amazing program. We have
we do it in both sites in our center based and we do it with our child care
partnerships. It is something that has been changing
our a lot of our trajectories right a lot of our journeys
and we see a positive impact of this and want to continue that.
So if anybody's considering that you know they'd be open to seeing how
it runs we we would be a site that that I think would be
interesting to look at. Along with that though it's just one
of the many things that we are doing to make sure that our children are
ready in language and literacy. I do have one final question for you and
that is looking at the public schools and other
facilities around the state that aren't as well
supported that don't have as much community support involved with it.
I've heard from a lot of them that they are overwhelmed with the increased
caseload and a number of other people coming in.
Are they able to handle that capacity? I mean in your estimation what would it be
like if you saw the dip you know that these issues are
here there's an increased need but you didn't have
the capacity to to do more with those kids. It's a challenge.
It is a huge challenge. We know a lot of our systems are resource depleted
and and they're tired. They're tired of taking
on that and not having enough and that you know and people say that money
doesn't make a difference. It does. It makes a difference. Resources make a
difference and community makes a difference
and I think Nextdoor has built not just the resources
financial resources through Head Start and Early Head Start supports and
also our charter but I think more than anything
we know the the impact that our community makes
and we put in the time and effort to do that and I think
not not getting down and finding you know being proactive about everything you
can do around language and literacy is really
very important. It gives gives our families the foundation of what they
need for their child's future and even their
future so I think that that's really important.
It doesn't have to always cost a lot of money either to do some things.
I think Lina is one of those programs that's worth it.
Can I get you to do say and spell your name? Give your title. Absolutely.
My first name is Tonya, T-O-N-Y-A. My last name is Hammeister,
H-A-M-E-I-S-T-E-R. All right and title? Do I get title?
What do you want to do? Oh I thought you meant sorry.
I'm a doctor too. Director of Educational Services.
All right perfect. Thank you. Thank you. You survived.
Didn't need your notes. You made it.
May