Assessment

Assessments at Gerner

Ongoing Assessment of Developmental Standards

All students at the Gerner Family Early Education Center are observed throughout the year in the classroom by staff that are most familiar with the children. The purpose of the assessment is to determine how students are progressing in the areas of development and for teachers to use that data to align their instruction to the needs of the students and overall programming.

Desired Results Developmental Profile

The State Board of Education recently adopted an instrument for early childhood readiness in Missouri after reviewing the results of a year-long pilot. The recommended voluntary early childhood readiness tool is the Desired Results Developmental Profile (DRDP) instrument developed by the California Department of Education. This instrument will provide useful information to parents, child care providers, teachers and administrators about the learning and development of each student. All classroom staff are trained upon hiring and entering the classroom roles, with regular training embedded throughout the year to review best practices.

The benefits of using the DRDP are as follows:

• Alignment to the existing Missouri Early Learning Goals.
• Inclusive of all young children, including children with disabilities or varied abilities and children of various backgrounds and cultures.
• To inform, support, and monitor learning over time for an individual child or groups of children participating in an early learning program.
• Use of a variety of methods to inform the assessment such as observations, interviews and a collection of children’s work.

Classroom Assessment: Students are observed in each of the developmental standards regarding their progress. Observations taken through anecdotal notes or in the form of pictures or videos are documented in a child's portfolio. Students are assessed using the DRDP , which tracks student progress on the developmental standards below:

• Social Emotional
• Physical
• Language
• Cognitive
• Literacy
• Mathematics
• English Language Acquisition

Teachers track their progress two times a year - fall and spring. Parents will have access to their child's progress at parent/teacher conferences and anytime upon request.

Developmental Screenings

DIAL-IV Screenings tool is to used to determine if a developmental delay is suspected with any child attending Gerner Center. Staff from different programs administer the screening tool during specific screening days. If students score in the potential delay range for their age, they may be referred to our Special Education Evaluation Team to determine if additional testing if desired.  Parent's written consent is required if additional testing is requested. Staff administering assessments complete a building level training to review screening protocols, roles, and reliability. Regular training is held to ensure that all staff are properly implementing the protocol throughout the year.