Early Childhood Education
2022-2023 Program Review

The Early Childhood Education department at American River College offers courses in Early Childhood Education that may be taken to fulfill general education requirements, and/or to earn one of the awards in Early Childhood education (A.A., A.S.-T, or Certificate)

We provide students with a high quality education that will enable them to have a meaningful and financially sustaining career in education.

• Upon completion of our courses, students become better prepared to reach their academic or vocational goals. Our courses are academically rigorous, transfer-level courses, thereby allowing students to transfer to and succeed at a four-year institution. Our A.S.-T degree in Early Childhood Education offers a clear path for transfer to the CSU system
• Our department offers a wide variety of courses that give students a solid foundation of lower division coursework in our discipline. Our degree program offers students a comprehensive overview of the field of Early Childhood Education, including but not limited to: general principles, child and adolescent development, observation, curriculum and anti-bias education. Several of our courses meet requirements for general education
• All of our courses are required for degrees, certificates, or transfer. In addition, all of our courses offer opportunities for students to engage in lifelong learning as well as personal and professional development. Our courses provide preparation for employment as Speech Language Pathology Assistants, paraprofessional aides in public and private community settings, and as teachers in early childhood education settings including family child care, Head Start, state preschool programs, and public elementary schools. Our courses are critical to degree offerings across the college, including courses for degrees in Elementary Teacher Education, Speech-Language Pathology, Nursing, Recreation, and elective units for a degree in Psychology.
• Our courses align closely with California Community Care Licensing regulations and the requirements for the Child Development Permit granted by the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing. Courses also align with Child Development and Early Childhood Education majors offered by several California State Universities 
• The 19 AS-T Degrees that ECE conferred in 2021-2022 represent 5.4% of ARC’s total AS-T Degrees, and the 42 AA Degrees that ECE conferred represent 4.4% of ARC’s total AA Degrees

Degrees

A.S.-T. in Early Childhood Education for Transfer

A.A. in Early Childhood Education

Certificates of Achievement

Associate Teacher Certificate

Teacher Certificate

Master Teacher Certificate

Site Supervisor Certificate

Children with Disabilities and Developmental Differences Specialist Certificate

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Specialist Certificate

Infant and Toddler Specialist Certificate

Family Child Care Certificate

The Early Childhood Education Department contributes to achievement of the mission of American River College in the following ways:

• We offer a variety of courses that fulfill General Education requirements, and/or earn an A.A., A.S.-T, or certificate
• We help students meet their educational and career goals by developing streamlined pathways for Certificate and Degree completion and transfer to other colleges and universities, introducing students to a variety of educational pathways, and leading an Early Childhood Education Community Advisory Committee to stay abreast of changes in the labor market
• We support student success via workshops, mentoring, 1-on-1 faculty-student interactions, and by partnering with student support programs such as Puente, Umoja, ESL Center, Beacon tutoring and HomeBase
• We provide student-centered instruction in an inclusive learning environment that embraces reality andragogy and inspires critical thinking and self-reflection grounded in research and empirical observation
• We are committed to equity and social justice through equity-minded education, and aligning our curriculum and departmental initiatives with the goals of anti-bias and anti-racist education for all students
• As part of the Child Care Access Means Parents in School (CCAMPIS) grant, we provide support for families at the American River College Child Development Center through parent workshops and workforce entry training
• The PRIDE center was established, in part, due to the committee participation of one of our faculty members as a founding member of ARC’s first LGBTQ Subcommittee. This committee also established gender neutral restroom maps, institutionalized the use of preferred names on class rosters, ensured that ARC had an AB620 LGBTQ Liaison and that our LGBTQ population was addressed in the Student Equity Program.
• We advocate for policies that support early childhood education in Sacramento and the state of California, including work with the CA Community College Early Childhood Educators, the CA Dept of Education Child Development Division, the Sacramento County Office of Education, California State University, Sacramento, Child Action Inc. and various local school districts
• We stay current in our field by engaging in professional development, presenting at conferences, and publishing research in the field of Early Childhood Education

Since the last program review cycle, the Early Childhood Education department has achieved the following objectives:

• Designated sections of ECE 314 and 430 are now recommended Puente and Umoja courses
• In partnership with the Teacher Education Department, we now have a Future Educators student club, sponsored by one of our faculty members
• We regularly communicate with HomeBase staff and assist with Early Childhood Education related programming
• We now embrace data-informed approaches to planning, decision-making, and resource allocation, including using Ad Astra to inform scheduling and ensuring we are offering courses needed for program completion through the use of a new course rotation document
• Various faculty have completed the Equity Data Training, the ARC Understanding Your Individual Course Data Training, the Equity Action Institute, the ARC Equitable Grading Training, the ARC Equity & Culturally Responsive Online Teaching Institute, and the Developing an Equity-minded Syllabus Training
• Various faculty have completed the ARC Online Teaching Institute, Los Rios Foundations of CANVAS Course Design course, and the ARC Accessible Course Creation Academy
• We now require ECE 430: Culture and Diversity in ECE in 7 of our 8 Certificates and review all curriculum for cultural relevancy and inclusion
• Two faculty members completed the 4-week Black Ally Program, "Dismantling Anti-Blackness on Your Campus: Core Competencies for Allies" through CORA Learning
• We updated the ARC ECE website, including links to Child Development Permit information and how to petition for an ARC Certificate
• The ARC ECE Faculty CANVAS site was updated, faculty were invited to join, and we now use it regularly for departmental communication. The site now includes pages for the FastTrack OEI Rubric Academy , Equitable Grading Resources, Adjunct Faculty Contact Information, Faculty Availability Forms, Annual Unit Plans, and Transformative Syllabi, as well as new Modules for Resources for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Teaching and Black Minds Matter
• We revised our Master Teacher Certificate, condensing the Specializations in an effort to streamline educational pathways for students
• One faculty member authored and was awarded a Perkins grant and completed revisions to ECE 314, 420, and 422 to add in equity focused and anti-bias leadership course topics, as well as create an ECE course scheduling priority list, documenting how each course connects to certificates, degrees, and Child Development Permits
• We updated the Children with Disabilities and Developmental Differences Specialist description, requirements, and career options for accuracy in relation to the Child Development Permit system and Title 22 regulations
• Two faculty members have aligned online sections of ECE 312, 314, 331 and ECE 430 to the California Virtual Campus Online Educational Initiative Online Course Design Rubric and were awarded the Quality Reviewed badge for courses they individually authored and aligned through the Course Design Academy (CDA) process. There are 28 ARC faculty members with this designation
• We now provide more easily recognizable pathways through ARC after streamlining our Certificates. We deleted our Assistant Teacher, Health and Safety, Curriculum, Management, and School Age Certificates, and updated our Culture and Diversity Certificate (now called Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion), Infant and Toddler Certificate, and Special Needs Certificate (now called Children with Disabilities and Developmental Differences). We also created a new Family Child Care Certificate of Achievement, and deleted courses that were no longer meeting the needs of our students, including ECE 356, 358, 407, 414, 432, and 455
• We have been granted articulation with CSUS for ECE 401 and ECE 404, which meet the requirement for clear and multiple subject credentials in California
• All but two Early Childhood Education courses required for the A.A. and the A.S.-T. are now available through distance educatio
•  Course offerings have been adjusted to meet the needs of our working students and student parents, with more online and hybrid sections being offered
• We have institutionalized the Hand Shake job placement system as a way for students to access employment opportunities
• We have articulated ECE 300 and ECE 312 with San Juan Unified Sunrise and Creekside Adult Schools
• We executed a contract with San Juan Unified School District to provide ECE units to teachers seeking employment as Transitional Kindergarten teachers
• We established an MOU with San Juan Unified School District to allow student placements in inclusion classrooms within the district
• We partnered with other Los Rios Colleges and the Sacramento County Office of Education to provide ECE units to teachers seeking employment as Transitional Kindergarten teachers, and to provide our students with career guidance
• The college executed a contract with SETA to establish an ECE Apprenticeship program
•  We have increased our use of OER course materials, hosted a faculty workshop on low-cost and no-cost ECE course materials, and one faculty member authored an OER Infant and Toddler textbook?????????????????
• ????We are in the process of aligning curriculum for ECE 300, 312, 314, 320, 321, 326, 415, and 430 to the California Curriculum Alignment Project course outlines

Program Strengths:

• SLO assessment results indicate that all or most students achieve the course SLOs
• We exceeded our Department Set Standards (DSS) for success rates, and scored in between the Department Set Standard and the Stretch Goal indicating that no statistically significant changes have occurred
• Although our productivity has dropped 16.2% from 2021 to 2022, our productivity increased steadily between Spring 2018 and Spring 2021, which suggests more efficient allocation of FTE. We suspect that fewer students entering the field may have impacted Spring 2022 enrollment as many child care centers remained closed during the pandemic.
• The department continues to closely monitor enrollments trends, and make scheduling changes as needed to meet student needs
• Our department offers diverse and innovative course offerings such as hybrid courses (we were the first Los Rios college to introduce hybrid ECE courses)
• Our department collaborates with other departments such as the ARC Library for the Children's Peace and Diversity Collection, the Teacher Education department for the Future Educators Club, and the ESL department to establish an ESL Certificate that includes ECE courses
• Our department collaborates with our sister colleges in the Los Rios District, local school districts and CSUS to develop educational pathways for students
• Our department is a grant partner with local school districts and the Sacramento County Office of Education to provide working students with tuition assistance and the courses needed to further their careers in education
• Our department now centers equity in curriculum development, teaching practices, departmental meetings, and professional development opportunities. We have used department meetings to offer LGBTQ Ally training, and to focus on equity data, transformative syllabi and OER materials.
• Our department now practices data informed course scheduling, and now uses a Course Rotation document so that we can ensure we are offering all courses on a timely and predictable schedule, and are able to provide counselors with projections
• Our department has successfully responded to historic challenges in our field caused by the COVID 19 global pandemic, such as transitioning all of our courses online, including our difficult to convert lab classes
• We continue to support our Child Development Center (which has just received accreditation status through the National Association for the Education of Young Children) and we provide high quality lab experiences for students
• Our department helps students to develop self-reflective, professional and ethical practices that foster positive relationships among children, families, and colleagues
• We now work with the ARC Research department to collect student feedback on our courses and programs, with an emphasis on supporting the success of our DI students

Program Challenges:

Early Childhood Education has always been on the front lines of societal issues our society is facing, such as homelessness, poverty, lack of paid family leave, lack of affordable high quality child care, failing schools, and teacher shortages. These issues were exacerbated by the pandemic, in addition to fewer people wanting to work in child care, more students wanting online courses, and low enrollment for fully in-person courses. Our faculty have experienced our own traumas, in addition to the secondary traumas of our students. As an academic department we are not designed to solve these problems, nor can faculty take on the full burden of these challenges, but we continue to move the needle as best we can within our capacity as faculty.

• Disproportionate Impact for success rates, AB rates, and drop rates remain a challenge in many courses, particularly for males, African American and Latinx students, and in courses with larger class sizes
• Many ECE students have mental health challenges that need additional support beyond the capacity of individual faculty members
• ECE faculty experience secondary trauma from our students, often due to the nature of our course topics
• Chancellor office goals do not always align with college administration goals in terms of wage outcomes for students. While our certificates serve as a stepping stone to further education, they often lead to low wages and poor working conditions, and our Apprenticeship program partners with an organization that pays well below the living wage for Sacramento County. Members of our department struggle ethically with the pressure to recruit students for programs that result in low wages and poor working conditions.
• We struggle with meeting the college’s set standards for updating curriculum 
• We need to improve our understanding of how to use college and individual data to improve our courses and programs, and create more equitable pathways for students
• Without dedicated support positions, counselors, or adequate staffing, our department struggles to meet the ever-changing demands of our field, and the additional demands placed upon us that extend beyond the time that we are compensated for. Our program is large and the work we do within our department, within the community and our profession, and with our campus child development center is very involved. We were granted a replacement position after a resignation in 2019, but that position was denied due the pandemic hiring freeze. We deal with many professional and advocacy issues that require much additional time from our department faculty, but release time for special projects has been denied. This has resulted in an increased workload for faculty. Many departments have a coordinator as well as a department chair to do this work. Members of our department struggle in finding work life balance, and often find ourselves in positions where we have taken on too many responsibilities at work, to the detriment of our personal health.
• Our department struggles to balance student needs, ECE department goals, and employer requirements which are not always in alignment. One example is that there is a disconnect between the courses we require for our Certificates and Degrees and the courses that are required by child care employers.
• Our department is not able to meet high student demand for online courses and online office hours due to college scheduling demands and contractual constraints. These demands were present pre-pandemic.
• Because we are categorized as a CE program, our department struggles to protect early childhood education as a valued academic field of study, where education is a form of liberation, not simply a way to produce workers that align with industry demands
• Adjunct faculty do not participate in ARC equity focused professional development activities in high numbers
•  Lack of dedicated classroom space at Natomas Center. ECE courses are still held at Inderkum high school which is not staffed and is difficult to teach in. Instructors do not feel safe there at night.
• Our department does not offer OEI Rubric alignment for most online courses
• Our department struggles with high class maximums that make it difficult to maintain a high level of interaction with each student. Some faculty have only around 40 students a semester, while some have up to 200. This is an equity issue for faculty, but also an equity issue for students. We know from data the college has provided (DI report) that our disproportionately impacted students are seeking more individual support from faculty. Colwell and Jenks (as cited in Burruss, Billing, Brownrigg, Skiba, & Connors, 2009) set the upper limit for a desirable class size as 20 for an undergraduate course. ECE courses have 40 students per class while many other departments within our division and college hover between 25-30.????????

Our recommendations to specifically address these challenges include:

• Hire the full-time replacement position we were previously granted, as well as additional adjunct faculty
• Seek opportunities and funding sources to help support the work of our faculty This might be include, but is not limited to: Hiring student support positions, Professional Development Leave, and Sabbatical leave
• Hire a district wide ECE Career Navigator position similar to the position at Chabot College to assist students with questions about ECE career pathways, Degree and Certificate program qualifications, California Child Development Permits, and funding resources
• Hire additional counselors and have at least one dedicated ECE counselor
• Work with our faculty union to negotiate a contract that allows us to meet student demands for more online classes and online office hours
• Advocate for partnerships with community partners that provide high paying jobs and provide a full range of benefits
• Work towards having more of our online courses OEI Rubric Aligned
• Seek funding sources to help support faculty working on OER and equity focused initiatives
• Work with the Academic Senate Class Size Task Force to reduce class sizes.
• Work with the college to add a “low cost” note in the online class schedule that is not limited to new materials
• Increased training for faculty so that we are better able to measure and improve DI outcomes and use data in planning curriculum and program initiatives
• Align district professional development offerings with the needs of adjunct faculty who work full time and offer compensation
• Provide classroom space for ECE classes within the Natomas Center
• Increased transparency and communication between department and college administrators regarding new initiatives that may impact faculty workload
• Continue to analyze our courses, Certificates and Degrees as they relate to student needs and employment in the field
• Normalize self-care for faculty, and incorporate more self-care and wellness topics into our curriculum and programming

Areas for further research and needed supports:

• We need to research student enrollment and success barriers specific to our courses
• Faculty need release time and funding to explore the creation of healing centered, wellness curriculum and training for both faculty and students
• We need to research if there is a need for a Hyflex ECE classroom
• Our department needs the support of an ECE Career Navigator position similar to the position at Chabot College to assist students with questions about ECE career pathways, Degree and Certificate program qualifications, California Child Development Permits, and funding resources, and to engage in community outreach to increase program visibility as a fruitful and viable A.A. degree. We are currently piloting a district wide position and hope to pursue Regional Strong Workforce funds.
• We are facing staffing issues with the growth of ECE Apprenticeship programs, contract classes and potential dual enrollment. We need to hire additional adjunct and fill our full time tenure track replacement position. Even with additional faculty, the college should prioritize faculty wellness and avoid burning out faculty by constantly adding more to our plates.
• Investigate offering fully online Early Childhood Education Degree and Associate Teacher Certificate
•  Investigate offering a Zero Cost Certificate and Degree program

The process of reflection and dialogue has revealed the following findings related to the department’s effectiveness:

Through our findings we have learned that our unit has been very effective in meeting our stated objectives. The new format of the Annual Unit plan has made it easier to identify our goals and clearly outline what action steps are needed to accomplish our goals. We were able to facilitate all of our planned actions, yet we still see the same disproportionate outcomes for Latinx and African-American students. We need to make better use of data and research to measure outcomes, and plan future initiatives. Continuing to complete equity focused professional development activities and offer student workshops, yet not seeing any changes in our DI data tell us that these methods are not providing us with the results we are seeking.

• Our department would like to explore the possibility of offering a learning community section for each of our multi-section courses, starting with ECE 300, 314 and 312 for students engaged with the the Umoja Sakhu, P.R.I.S.E., Puente, and the Native American Resource Center program
• Our department needs the support of an ECE Career Navigator similar to the position at Chabot College to assist students with questions about ECE career pathways, Degree and Certificate program qualifications, California Child Development Permits, and funding resources, and to engage in community outreach to increase program visibility as a fruitful and viable A.A. degree. We are currently piloting a district wide position and hope to pursue Regional Strong Workforce funds.
• Our department would like to maintain regular contact with our HomeBase counselors so we can better understand the students’ barriers and the counselors can better understand our degree and programs’ maps. In doing so, students will continue to receive consistent and accurate information from both counselors and instructional faculty.
• We are experiencing staffing issues with the continued growth of the existing ECE Apprenticeship program and contract courses, which may necessitate additional adjunct and the filling of a full time tenure track replacement position as well

What can we do to increase our use of research and data?

• We could connect with other departments across our sister colleges who have successfully used research/data to achieve improvements and enter discussions with them, and adopt their research/data approaches
• We could work with the ARC research department to do more qualitative data collecting (looking for common patterns) so that students have the opportunity to share rather than quantitative that has us in the assuming role
• We could work more closely with the ARC research department to design research and interpret individual and department data
• Identify possible avenues for including student voices (particularly those students from disproportionately impacted populations) in the unit planning and program review process (e.g., via survey, focus groups)

The three following goals support improved academic instruction and clear educational pathways for students:

• The ECE department will conduct regular comprehensive reviews of our Certificates and Degrees, ensuring that they prioritize student equity and align with real world pathways to careers in education
• The ECE department will conduct regular comprehensive reviews of our curriculum, ensuring that our curriculum is current, culturally relevant, and anti-racist
• The ECE department will engage in equity focused professional development, which will include a focus on developing OER materials, improving individual DI outcomes, and self-care and wellness curriculum for both students and faculty

The following Program-level objectives will enhance the department’s effectiveness:

• Hire an ECE Career Navigator similar to the position at Chabot College to assist students with questions about ECE career pathways, Degree and Certificate program qualifications, California Child Development Permits, and funding resources, and to engage in community outreach to increase program visibility as a fruitful and viable A.A. degree. We are currently piloting a district wide position and hope to pursue Regional Strong Workforce funds.
• Hire additional adjunct and/or full time tenure track replacement position
• Develop more inclusive, healing centered, culturally relevant curriculum
• Complete curriculum updates in a timely manner so we remain current in the field and in compliance with college standards
• Engage in equity focused professional development and secure release time and funding for professional development and projects, that include development of OER materials and wellness focused curriculum
• Increase adjunct participation in professional development activities, particularly equity focused activities, and find ways to compensate them for these efforts
• Return to lower class sizes in line with research supported recommendations. Having lower class sizes allows each student to maximize personal connections with the instructor
• Create clear pathways to Certificates, Degrees, transfer and employment by updating our Certificate and Degree offerings
• Increase collaborations with college support programs that are culturally enriching and affirming for our DI populations, particularly African American and Latinx students, such as Puente Project, Umoja Sakhu, Blackademics, and the Native American Resource Center
• Increase offerings of online and hybrid courses to meet student demand

Success will be measured by:

• Improved retention and success rates, particularly among DI students
• Increased number of faculty who have completed equity focused professional development
• Increased number of anti-bias and anti-racist lecture topics in each course
• Increased number of transfer Degrees conferred
• Increased faculty agency over curriculum, ensuring that it reflects the most current research, meets the needs of students, and is in compliance with college standards

Faculty in the Early Childhood Education department have been consistently engaging in equity-advancing initiatives with the goal of decreasing the opportunity gap for our students, shifting away from a deficit approach of academic success (not hyper-focusing on the individual student or individual faculty members through a deficit lens) and toward a more systemic and institutional approach, that includes focusing on systemic barriers to success. This approach to education and educational outcomes focused on intentional and consistent efforts to decrease opportunity gaps for our students aligns with ARC’s commitment “to uphold the dignity and humanity of every student and employee.”

The ARC ECE Department will continue our commitment to equity and social justice in the following ways:

Strategic Enhancement:

• Ongoing participation in equity focused professional development
• Enhancement of ECE Department CANVAS pages devoted to social justice and equity
• Continued collaboration with Home Base staff and counselors to support DI students and reduce confusion for students
• Continued advocacy for smaller class sizes that will allow for increased individual student support
• Continued collaboration with the ARC Library on the Children’s Peace and Diversity Book Collection
• Seek Regional Strong Workforce funding for the hiring of an ECE Career Navigator to provide additional targeted assistance to DI students

Curriculum:

• Intentional considerations of student barriers when planning course offerings
• Department curriculum is annually reviewed and curated through the lens of social justice, particularly for our DI students, including intentional inclusion of scholarly work from traditionally marginalized groups
• Continue to improve our academic quality through critical analysis of curriculum, textbooks, assignments, and regular participation in professional development
• Explore cohort-based learning community courses open only to Umoja Sakhu, P.R.I.S.E, Puente, and the Native American Resources Center students. Partnerships between instructional faculty and programs across campus might be a way to address the DI on course completion and success rates