High Quality Prekindergarten Alignment

The Children’s Learning Institute provides many resources to support schools in using and implementing the free tools available on CLI Engage. Training and Support resources include custom resource pages by classroom age group/ grade level, information on uploading teacher and student, and assessment toolkits for all progress monitoring needs. Visit the Help Center for in-depth how-to guides and FAQs. 

Through CLI Engage, schools can access the Circle Activity Collection, available in English and Spanish, which translates research into practice through a variety of hands-on activities that teachers can implement in their classrooms during whole group, small group, centers, and one-on-one instruction. All activities have been re-aligned to the child outcomes in the updated Texas Prekindergarten Guidelines.   

The Circle Pre-K Curriculum provides all the resources needed to support weekly planning and delivery of high-quality prekindergarten instruction, available in English and Spanish.  

All school districts and charter schools following the High-Quality Prekindergarten Program guidelines upload prekindergarten assessment data into the Early Childhood Data System (ECDS), part of the Texas Student Data System (TSDS). On CLI Engage, the Circle Progress Monitoring (CPM) was approved for the current Commissioner’s List of Approved Prekindergarten Assessment Instruments. Visit ECDS Uploads for Pre-K Data for the list of required measures for districts uploading data into the Early Childhood Data System.

Circle Progress Monitoring was developed and validated by the Children’s Learning Institute at UTHealth Houston. CPM is available at no cost to all Texas public school districts and charter schools on CLI Engage.

There are many resources to support school districts and charter schools planning to implement Circle Progress Monitoring during the school year. The CPM Toolkit includes a variety of materials and resources to support your implementation of CPM.

The Children’s Learning Institute professional development model is designed to encourage teachers to review new information, reflect on what they have learned, and provide opportunities for practical application. All online courses offer CPE training certificates upon completion.

The Online Learning & Professional Development courses available on CLI Engage provide opportunities for: 

• Experiential learning through reflective practice and viewing documentary style videos of real classroom teachers 
• Practical application that connects classroom activities to put new foundational learning into practice and implement content strategies in the classroom 
• Automatic delivery of certificates of completion for online professional development, including automatic transfer into the user’s free Texas Workforce Registry account 

In addition to being certified to teach in the state of Texas (under TEC Chapter 102, Subchapter AA), each teacher must also have additional training or credentials. Texas School Ready provides avenues for teachers to meet these requirements: 

• (option 3) A Child Development Associate (CDA) credential™ 
• (option 4) Documented completion of TSR Comprehensive 
• (option 2) Completed 150 hours of professional development in ECE-specific topics over a consecutive five-year period; 75 of the 150 hours being in a mentoring/coaching relationship or; Completes 30 hours of ECE-specific professional development annually with 15 of the 30 hours being in a mentoring/coaching relationship until 150 hours are documented 
• (option 6) At least eight years’ experience of teaching in a nationally accredited child care program or Texas Rising Star Program

Professional Development Planning: On CLI Engage, administrators and specialists can support teachers at school districts and charter schools to develop and complete a customized professional development plan using online training on CLI Engage (all aligned to the Texas Prekindergarten Guidelines) at no cost. CLI Engage houses eCircle online courses, used in TSR classrooms for over ten years; these courses have been proven to improve teachers’ content knowledge in these important skill areas, and can be completed self-paced or through facilitated, face-to-face sessions. CLI Engage also houses online training courses for the Texas Prekindergarten Guidelines; through the courses, teachers are introduced to the guidelines, instructional strategies, and child outcomes across all domains with extensive videos and links to the Circle Activity Collection.

Customization of CLI Engage Online Professional Development: There are two main ways courses can be delivered to teachers: 

1. By default, all teachers with CLI Engage accounts have access to the self-instructional online courses, including eCircle courses. This allows teachers to access the information on their own, when they want/need to.  
2. CLI Engage also offers a unique opportunity for school districts, charters, and Education Service Centers to offer these same eCircle courses through a facilitated model that combines self-study with face-to-face activities and interactions with a course facilitator or master teacher. This allows the content to be delivered in a more customized manner, meeting the needs of the districts and teachers. 

CLI has designed detailed facilitation guides for all of the eCircle and Texas PKG online courses that delve deeper into interactively exploring and processing the research and strategies. These guides are provided at no cost to approved facilitators after submitting an application. The facilitator uses the guides to chart a path for the cohort of participants. Learn more about the CLI Engage Online Course Facilitator process. The following delivery models are recommendations for school districts to consider when determining training plans for teachers: 

• Face-to-Face Sessions: This delivery model allows for participants to come together in a face-to-face setting and participate in the courses as a group, covering one or two sections of each course. These sessions are designed to be one-two hours in length and held at regularly scheduled intervals, such as weekly or every other week throughout the year. Activities for participants to practice in the classroom between sessions are included. 
• Extended Face-to-Face Sessions: In this model, participants meet together for a full, six-to-eight-hour day of professional development and cover multiple sections of each course. These sessions may take place during scheduled professional development days, on additional days set aside specifically for eCircle classes, early release days, etc. As in the shorter face-to-face sessions, activities for participants to implement in the classroom are included as part of the agenda. 
• Hybrid Sessions: The hybrid session combines a face-to-face session with additional assigned, self-paced learning. The participants meet together face-to-face to cover one or two sections of the course. At the end of the session, the facilitator assigns additional course sections to be covered independently by the participants and completed by a specific deadline. The face-to-face learning sessions are one or two hours in length and spaced out sufficiently to allow participants ample time to complete the independent coursework between sessions.
• Self-Paced Courses: In this delivery model, no face-to-face sessions for participants are offered. The eCircle facilitator determines specific content to be covered and assigns it to participants for independent study. A discussion board can be included in this model. 

Coaching to Support Professional Development: The eCircle online courses were developed using CLI’s professional development model, including experiential learning, practical application, and direct interaction. Additionally, when these courses are facilitated, course facilitators have access to customized mentoring tips. These are useful for follow-up contact in classroom with teachers to both support the course material learned and promote reflective practice on their learning as synthesized into classroom practice. Other components on the platform such as the Classroom Observation Tool or the Circle Activity Collection are referenced as a resource for supporting focused content with data.  

• Sample Training Plan 1 – Teachers complete 15 hours of face-to-face training through the Circle Two-Day Training, and additional hours of online, self-paced training using eCircle courses to meet the minimum requirement of 30 hours.
• Sample Training Plan 2 – Teachers complete 15 hours of face-to-face, facilitated training of eCircle courses, using free facilitation guides provided by TSR to your district/charter. Teachers will also complete at least 15 additional self-paced training using the eCircle courses online.

Circle CDA Training Program: Through the Circle CDA Training Program on CLI Engage, preschool teachers can earn all 120 training hours needed to apply for the Preschool CDA, as well as online support in preparing their CDA Professional Portfolio, a required collection of reference materials related to their work. The Circle CDA Training Program utilizes eCircle courses, supplemented with additional online courses to fulfill all content knowledge required to successfully achieve a Child Development Associate (CDA) Credential™. Like the eCircle online courses, the Circle CDA Training Program could also be facilitated through face-to-face sessions using TSR-provided facilitation guides. Visit CLI Engage for more information about the Circle CDA Training Program. The online courses and assignments for the Circle CDA Training Program were developed using CLI’s professional development model, including experiential learning, practical application, and direct interaction. 

Check out these resources to learn more about the Circle CDA Training program: 

• Candidate Checklist 
• CDA Process Overview 
• Competency Goal Guide for Preschool 
• Circle CDA Professional Development Alignment for the Preschool CDA

Completion of Texas School Ready Training Program (TSR Comprehensive:) Teachers who previously participated in Texas School Ready may contact the Children’s Learning Institute to confirm their TSR completion. The Children’s Learning Institute is able to confirm TSR completion from 2008-present; we will provide a certificate of completion to each teacher upon their request. EACH TEACHER who previously completed at least two years in Texas School Ready must apply for a certificate to confirm their TSR completion. Staff at the Children’s Learning Institute will review the information submitted through this form. If a teacher’s completion can be confirmed, a certificate will be emailed to the teacher for their records. It will take approximately 10 days to confirm participation and award the certificate. We may contact you during that time if more information is needed.  Click here to apply for a TSR completion certificate

Teachers may have completed TSR Comprehensive under a different name: 

• Texas Early Education Model (TEEM) 
• Prekindergarten Early Start Grant (PKES) 
• Texas School Ready! (TSR) 
• TSR Comprehensive 

Coaching can significantly improve early childhood teachers’ instructional quality, and in turn child outcomes, when it provides sustained opportunities for individualized practice and feedback with an expert and/or mentor. Effective coaching models use systematic observation of specific language and literacy teaching practices to identify priority areas to set goals, and track progress toward reaching goals. CLI Engage features a series of tools for school districts and charter schools interested in supporting their teachers through mentoring and coaching, from beginning classroom observation to implementing a program to support your teachers. 

• The “Effective Mentoring Strategies” eCircle course, found in the online course library on CLI Engage, is designed to introduce the key components of mentoring and effective strategies to help mentors support early childhood teachers in their work with children. Through a series of video examples and practice activities including tools and strategies that will help mentors guide teachers of varying levels of experience, the course highlights mentors supporting early childhood teachers’ efforts to promote social-emotional development, early literacy, and math and science skills. 
• The Classroom Observation Tool (COT) and the Classroom Environment Checklist (CEC), both available under Quality and Improvement on CLI Engage, are two formative assessment tools used to identify instructional supports needed, provide feedback, and set goals for teachers ongoing continuous improvement. The COT catalogs the different teacher behaviors observed and implemented, and the CEC rates the quality of the opportunities provided by the arrangement of the classroom. Also, view exemplar CEC classroom images and COT teacher behavior videos. 
• CLI Engage offers numerous videos to support understanding of the resources and ways to further embed the resources into your district/charter’s initiatives, including several sessions on using classroom observation tools. 
• The Texas Core Competencies for Coaches represent core strategies that coaches can use to scaffold educators’ ability to provide children with high-quality and impactful experiences, interactions, and instruction. There are six categories of quality coaching competencies: characteristics of effective specialists, observation, providing feedback, fostering reflective thinking, demonstration and verbal cues, and supporting continuous improvement. 

Comprehensive resources for families are available on the CLI Engage platform at no cost to schools and families. Visit the CLI Engage Family Engagement Resources page for more information. The new Circle Activity Collection for Families includes fun, easy activity ideas that families can do together to help support important school readiness skills for children ages 0-6 in English and Spanish. The collection is available to teachers and parents for free!

There are several how-to guides for school staff to support sharing these Family Engagement Resources including:

• Adding parent/guardian email addresses to CLI Engage to share home activities
• Emailing home activities to families directly through CLI Engage
• Sharing progress monitoring results with families through printed reports and online access to CLI Engage

If your district/charter is considering partnerships with child care programs, we encourage you to review the following resources: 

• Community-Based School Readiness Integration Partnerships: Promoting Sustainable Collaborations toolkit that may serve as a guide and provides information on collaboration and partnership models for early childhood programs in Texas, from initial assessment and set-up to sustainability 
• Public-Private Partnerships resources and information on CLI Engage 

The following four partnership models are the most common in Texas communities. Please refer to the partnership toolkit for more detailed information about these partnership models, and how to set-up and sustain a partnership in your community. 

• Stacked or Flip/Flop Model – The “stacked” or “stacking” model, also known as the “flip-flop” model, describes two programs offered sequentially in order to piece together a full day of early care and education. 
• Concurrent Model – The “concurrent” model is used when more than one program is offered simultaneously and each program provides different services to a group of children in order to enhance and expand services. 
• Wraparound Model – The “wraparound” integrated model involves more than one program working together to provide both core and either before – or – after-school services or both. 
• Subcontracting Model – In the subcontracting model, one program subcontracts with another to provide services to children. The design of the subcontracting model determines how much integration occurs among the programs. Subcontracting can involve one agency designating another as a surrogate agency to provide services. In this model, there may be little to no joint planning or involvement regarding service delivery.