News from First Five Nebraska
 November 2015
 

 

Our vision is that all Nebraska children begin kindergarten with the experience they need to become successful students and productive citizens.  

 


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  • University of Nebraska President Hank Bounds talked about the importance of quality early education during a recent football halftime interview: "Like many states, Nebraska faces a shortage of highly qualified early childhood educators. Today that shortage is estimated in the neighborhood of 8,000 and the gap is big enough that focused steps will be required to close it." Listen now
The mandatory bidders webinar for the Sixpence Child Care Partnership grants is December 1 at 10 a.m. CST.  


 

 

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Buffett Institute, Educators Discuss Strategies to Build Nebraska's Early Childhood Workforce
      
Nebraska faces a serious shortage of early childhood professionals to provide the high-quality services that can close the achievement gap for our state's most at-risk children. We estimate that Nebraska has only 20% of the early educators needed to meet the needs of the state's children at risk from birth to age 5. 

The Buffett Early Childhood Institute gathered Nebraska's leaders in higher education to identify critical issues and start building consensus for cultivating a strong workforce of early childhood professionals prepared to help put children at risk on a path to lifelong success.

In a First Five Nebraska guest blog post, Dr. Susan Sarver, Director of Workforce Planning and Development at the Buffett Institute, discusses the work of the conference to create a common vision for our state's early educators and identifies three key challenges: 
  • A shortage of highly qualified early educators, particularly for infants and toddlers and English language learners. 
  • Nebraska's fragmented system of licensing, certification and educational preparation
  • The lack of a cohesive, valued and publicly recognized professional identity for early childhood educators. 
 
Dr. Susan Sarver

 

    
Courtney Phillips

DHHS Director Courtney Phillips: The Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services is involved in developing and implementing the Sixpence Early Learning Fund
through licensing and administering federal and state child care funds. DHHS has begun to implement policies that incentivize providers to improve their program quality.

                  Read More




Children with larger oral vocabularies by age 2 arrived at kindergarten better prepared academically and behaviorally than their peers. 


Governor Pete Ricketts named November Read Aloud to a Child Month. Reading aloud to children improves their vocabulary and enhances listening skills. Here's more information and recommended books.