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The purpose of the PreKindergarten Early Start Grant is to prepare children to be school ready by implementing a high-quality prekindergarten program.
As part of the Prekindergarten Early Start Grant, teachers will be trained in implementing the Texas Early Education Model (TEEM), an intervention developed by the Center for Improving the Readiness of Children for Learning and Education (CIRCLE), a part of The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. TEEM provides prekindergarten teachers with research-driven curriculum, progress monitoring tools, and professional development to assist them in preparing children to be school ready.
In 1999, CIRCLE was identified to lead Governor George W. Bush’s early childhood education initiative. CIRCLE focused on training early childhood teachers and caregivers in language and literacy skills with the goal of helping teachers and parents to prepare young children for learning. In 2003, Governor Rick Perry selected CIRCLE to be the State Center for Early Childhood Development. CIRCLE and the SCECD were later combined with other entities under the umbrella of the Children’s Learning Institute.
In that same year the legislature passed Senate Bill 76, appointing the SCECD with the implementation of TEEM as a research project. TEEM was piloted in 2003 with 2100 students in 11 Texas communities. During the 2008-2009 school year TEEM served 61,000 students in 38 communities.
According to the Children’s Learning Institute’s recent report to the legislature, three key findings hold true through this research:
• The Texas Early Education Model positively influences teacher quality.
• The longer one is a TEEM teacher, the better she or he gets.
• Not only do the teachers benefit, but so do the children.
As a result of the success of TEEM in producing school-ready children, TEA has chosen to integrate this model into the Prekindergarten Early Start (PKES) Grant that ten Region 14 school districts have received. These schools are working with Region 14 ESC in a shared service agreement to prepare children to be school ready.
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