Director:  Chris Landon

Grade Levels: Infant-Kindergarten (school-age children included during summer)

Annual Report

2005-2006

Introduction

Castleton United Methodist Nursery School (CUMNS) is in its 38^th year of operation. CUMNS is a nationally accredited early childhood program located at 7101 North Shadeland Avenue in Indianapolis. CUMNS operates as a registered day care ministry by the state of Indiana. The program currently serves 236 children for over 157 different families. Mrs. Chris Landon has served as the director for the past 37 years. There are 47 staff members at CUMNS, 20 who are employed full-time.

Care is provided for infants (6 weeks and up) and toddlers. Nursery School classes are available for 3- and 4-year-olds, 4- and 5-year-olds and 5-year-olds. Additionally, morning kindergarten, with full day optional, is provided. Daily discovery is a flexible program that offers quality extended care for children attending Nursery School and Kindergarten. Care is also provided during the summer in the Summer Camper program. Enrollment for summer 2006 currently stands at 182.

Motor development activities are provided on a daily basis for children ages 3 years and up. Each class also has two scheduled times for outdoor play. Two playgrounds contain appropriate equipment for children's developing skills.

CUMNS has been in the Professional Development School (PDS) Network since the fall of 1998. The 2005–2006 goals established for CUMNS and Ball State University (BSU) were as follows:

Teacher Preparation

Goal:
Provide high-quality placements for student teachers.

Progress:
Classroom supervisors are carefully selected by Mrs. Landon and the PDS Liaison; however, all staff members are expected to contribute to the student teachers' developing skills. One student teacher was placed at CUMNS Kids during summer 2006.

Goal for 2006–2007:
Provide high-quality placements for student teachers.

Staff Development

Goal:
Have ongoing staff development for an hour, at naptime, each week during the school year. At least 4 topics will be covered during the school year. Teachers receive all four rotating classes. The topics addressed in the classes were (a) Planning with a Purpose (how to incorporate the Indiana Foundations into curriculum); (b) Creativity; (c) Article Study; and (d) Conscious Discipline®. These classes were called TWS (Together We Shine).

Progress:
Thirty-two weeks of staff development were conducted. Pre- and post-surveys were conducted for each training session and a final survey was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the staff development. Dr. Huber has tabulated the data and will be developing a manuscript and workshop proposals for the National PDS Conference and the National Association for the Education of Young Children Annual Conference in 2007.

Goal for 2006–2007:
Continue the TWS classes with new topics and encourage staff who have been teaching these classes to present portions of their classes at early childhood conferences in Indiana.

Research

Goal:
At Orientation, present Action Research Guidelines to the staff and challenge each classroom to choose a topic and to conduct research.

Progress:
Rather than focus on the teachers doing Action Research, four staff members were asked to lead TWS classes during the year.

Goal for 2006–2007:
Complete the NAEYC self study for re-accreditation. This will require data collection and review.

Student Learning

Goal:
Continue to encourage the School Family and to record progress to better enable us to evaluate

Progress:
All classes spent one month focusing on building the School Family and implementing Conscious Discipline®. Teachers noted that in classrooms where the School Family had been built well, the behavior problems have been notably reduced.

Goal for 2006–2007:
To implement the philosophy of the Creative Curriculum® with perhaps a future goal of implementing the evaluation component associated with it.

Prepared by Linda Huber, BSU Liaison to CUMNS Kids, and Chris Landon, Director of CUMNS Kids