A MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT Dear Friends, As we continue to work together through this extraordinary time, thank you. This challenging year highlighted the creativity, persistence, and care that members of the Bank Street College community bring to the pursuit of equitable, quality, responsive education for children and adults. Throughout the year, I saw again and again the capacity within our community to support children, families, and educators. I am grateful to you for your part in this effort, and would like to highlight just a few of the extraordinary accomplishments from this year. This spring, the Graduate School of Education successfully renewed its accreditation for seven years through the Association for Advancing Quality in Educator Preparation (AAQEP). With in-person classes resuming this summer, we are also seeing a promising increase in applicants for both our on-ground and virtual programs for next school year. The Graduate School has expanded efforts to partner with public schools and provide access to more graduate students, including the launch of a new residency program with District 13 in Brooklyn. Over the last year, Graduate School faculty and staff have also made significant contributions to the field of education through research and scholarship, bringing forward the thinking of practitioners in the field, pursuing studies that strengthen our understanding of social justice, and supporting the development of strong policy at the federal, state, and local level. Graduate School faculty members have published three new books and five new articles, among other recent scholarship. The Educator Preparation Laboratory has expanded the national practice network and developed a particular focus on advancing anti-racist educator preparation. The Straus Center for Young Children and Families launched new research efforts, including work to better understand the experience of early childhood educators during COVID-19 and a study focused on improving dual language teaching for Spanish speakers by elevating Latina teacher voices. The National Center for Children in Poverty published a number of reports and resources, including updating their Family Resource Simulator tool that estimates public benefits and tax credit packages. In our children’s programs, we implemented effective health and safety measures across Head Start, the Family Center, and the School for Children and ensured children and families had the best possible experience during COVID-19, including running in-person programming for most of the school year alongside an at-home program. This required reinventing almost every aspect of our programs while our faculty and staff continued to hold children at the center of the learning. Family Center staff provided an integrated and safe setting for all the children in the program. In the School for Children, faculty and staff also made progress on elements of the strategic plan, including work around curriculum, literacy and differentiated instruction, and inclusive and restorative classroom management practices. Recognizing the increased need in their community, our Head Start program launched a food delivery initiative, provided families with learning resources, and focused on social-emotional support for families and staff. We shifted all Liberty LEADS programming to a virtual format and conducted extensive outreach to students and families, providing academic and social-emotional support, connecting families to resources, and supplying Chromebooks. In the Bank Street Education Center, teams shifted and rebuilt partnerships with schools, districts, and other community organizations to respond to COVID-specific needs and demands from the field. The School System Partnerships & Programs team will build on the success of its partnership with Yonkers Public Schools to launch a new effort to improve middle school math education with two districts in Brooklyn. The Center on Culture, Race & Equity held its third annual Black Lives Matter at School Week Early Childhood Symposium, reaching close to 2,000 participants from across the country, as part of an effort to launch a new “Re-imagining Black Childhood Portfolio” that will disrupt anti-Black racism through multimedia adult professional learning experiences.
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