Program Administration and Staffing
Classrooms in place for more than one academic year, including relocated classrooms, offering the 5-day extended program, 5-day extended GSRP/Head Start Blend, or 5-day part-day extended program must operate 5 days per week for a minimum of 180 days spread over at least 36 weeks. To better align with the local K-12 calendar and operations, ISDs should use the table below as a guide to ensure programs are maximizing instructional teacher-child contact days, while allowing for family engagement and professional learning. ISDs are responsible for ensuring that program schedules are set before school begins and do not take unfair advantage of these options. Programs should only make use of these options to the extent necessary to accomplish GSRP requirements. If a 5-day part-day extended program offers only one session (morning or afternoon), the use of these options should be limited as the expectation is family engagement and professional learning is occurring when children are not in session.
Classrooms offering the 5-day extended program must operate as follows:
| Classroom Operational By: | Minimum Number of Instructional Teacher-Child Contact Days: | Family Engagement including home visits or parent teacher conferences | Professional learning and/or coaching days of five (5) or more hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| August 31st | A minimum of 180 days | Eight (8) | Five (5) |
| September 30th | A minimum of 165 days | Seven (7) | Four (4) |
| October 31st | A minimum of 150 days | Six (6) | Three (3) |
| November 30th | A minimum of 135 days | Five (5) | Three (3) |
| December 1st – February Spring Collection Close | A minimum of 120 days | Four (4) | Two (2) |
In alignment with local K-12, all GSRP options are allowed up to six (6) instructional days that may be forgiven for inclement weather cancellations.
Programs implementing the extended program option may consider the use of “specials” to facilitate teaching team planning time, ongoing child assessment, collaboration with other service providers, coaching, and family engagement. During specials, children engage in developmentally appropriate activities such as art, music, literacy, and physical education that may be offered by the local school district or community partnerships such as a yoga instructor, local librarian, or music instructor. Specials providers should work collaboratively with GSRP teachers.
Specials providers should understand and be guided by the Early Childhood Standards Quality for Birth to Kindergarten (ECSQ). Programs should take care to follow child care licensing requirements around fingerprinting, health and safety training requirements, and the use of approved space with consideration given to bringing specials providers into the classroom or program instead of taking children to another space for that time. If choosing to allow periods of release time for one member of the teaching team during this part of the day, the specials providers will need to complete all licensing requirements to be considered in the ratios. If the specials provider does not meet all licensing requirements to be considered in ratio, then the teaching team members need to be in the room with the children during the programming provided by the specials providers.
