The youngest and the oldest students in the Catalina Foothills School District are learning together through a collaboration between the Valley View Early Learning Center (VVELC) and the Early Childhood Education (ECE) Program offered at Catalina Foothills High School.
A house behind the high school on Valley View Road served as the initial location of VVELC when it began in 1998. VVELC combines the concepts of several leading early childhood development philosophies to offer an emergent curriculum, as defined on the school website:
“Emergent curriculum arises naturally from adult-child interactions and situations that allow for "teachable moments.” It connects learning with experience and prior learning. It includes all interests of children and responds to their interests rather than focusing on a narrow, individual, or calendar-driven topic. It is process rather than product-driven. The curriculum is typically implemented after an idea or interest area emerges.”
VVELC offers an immersion curriculum in both Spanish and Mandarin. Children are encouraged to dive deeper into learning a subject, fueled by their own natural curiosity. For example, a parent purchased the book Superbat, by Matt Carr, at the bookfair for the classroom. This read-aloud book served as the springboard for related art, language, and science units about bats, culminating in the students constructing a bat cave in the classroom.
Initial conversations to involve the Pima Joint Technical Education District (JTED) ECE Program began before COVID to address the lack of early-development teachers in the field, and were quickly implemented during the 2023-2024 school year once restrictions were lifted. The collaboration attempts to “grow our own into the profession,” per Jennifer Dooley, Principal of VVELC.
The program invites male students to pursue early education as a career, which is traditionally a female dominated field. Students are also exposed to professions related to child development, such as school psychology, physical therapy, occupational therapy, and school counseling.
The first-year students (ECE 1) spend time on the VVELC campus, mostly observing, to get a glimpse of what the environment is like. “Students explore elements which affect behavior, physical, social, emotional, and intellectual development of children during prenatal, infancy, and preschool age.” The ECE curriculum states, “Vivid imagination and creative skills are essential.”
Students are assigned a baby doll infant powered by artificial intelligence. The babies simulate typical scenarios such as crying due to hunger or discomfort and require soothing from the student. The students quicky grasp the constant vigilance and attention required in caring for infants and toddlers, a critical component in studying human growth and development. The system can also simulate an infant in a choking situation.
Students receive a fingerprint card and TB test facilitated through the program, which makes them immediately employable. Some students have found employment with early childhood centers and may attend college to pursue an education degree.
All VVELC teachers are certified with a minimum of a bachelor’s degree and an Early Childhood Education endorsement. The school holds multiple distinctions and accreditations. “Because the first five years have so much to do with how the rest turn out.”
Second-year (ECE 2) students get more involved in creating structure and activities that align with the Arizona Early Learning Standards. Third year students (ECE 3) gain internship hours in a classroom setting.
High school students can accumulate 18 hours of college credit through the three-year program, which is in partnership with the Pima County Community College dual enrollment designation. Cari Burson, Director of CTE/JTED, said the ECE Program fills a missing niche in the JTED curriculum: “Our goal is to build capacity within the education alumni and have them come back to teach.”
There are currently 90 students enrolled in the first year of the program and 35 continuing in the second year of instruction. Under the leadership of high school teacher Brenda Cabarga, the class size doubled from three classrooms to six in a single year. Three students who graduated high school after completing ECE 1 this past Spring are enrolled in education programs at the University of Arizona, Arizona State University, and Northern Arizona University.
Some of the first students to attend VVELC are now parents enrolling their toddlers at the school. Current ECE high school students may be returning to their teaching roots as well as the popular program continues to evolve.
VVELC encourages families to tour the school and take note that registration for the following school year takes place in December.
Students explore elements which affect behavior, physical, social, emotional, and intellectual development