• Category 3

    Selected in 2022

  • Grades: pre k - 2
    School Setting: rural
    Town Population: 17,854
    Student Enrollment: 592
    Student Demographics:

    Black/African American: 17.1%
    White/Caucasian: 47.3%
    Hispanic: 26.3%
    Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 0.2%
    Asian: 1.2%
    Native American: 0%
    Other: 7.9%

    Teacher/Student Ratio: 1:15
    % Reduced Lunch: 100%
    % ELL Learners: 25.2%
    Founded: 1969
  • PRINCIPAL:
    Dane Sears
  • CONTACT:
    400 Governor's Avenue
    Greenwood , DE 19950
    302-349-4539
    dane.sears@wsd.k12.de.us
Woodbridge Early Childhood Education Center
Greenwood , DE
"We believe that every child is a unique and special individual who can learn and succeed."
1. Tell us about your school’s success.
We are an academic driven institution that accepts nothing less than the best from every student that steps through our doors. In return, the faculty, staff, and administration give their best to all students each day in order to help them achieve. We believe that it is our responsibility to serve as facilitators for the nurturing and developing of every child’s maximum potential: academically, physically, socially, and emotionally. We see our Multi-Language Learners as an asset to our school culture, and we believe that every child is a unique and special individual who can learn and succeed. We earned the 2022 ESEA Distinguished School award for the growth and progress toward English language proficiency that the English learners made during the 21-22 school year.
2. Talk about the greatest contributing factor(s) that promoted positive change in your school.
The greatest contributing factor(s) that promoted positive change in our school is commitment as well as our district and building administration making a whole school investment in the growth of English proficiency. Over the past 6 years we have grown our Multi-Language Learner staff from just a single instructional assistant to 2 teachers and an instructional assistant. An increase in funding allowed us to increase our staffing and programming for our Multi-Language Learners.
When students are enrolled at WECEC or they matriculate through our school we take great care to strategically place them in classrooms throughout our entire school. Our classroom teachers provide language supports during instruction and assessments and our MLL staff have put a focus on pre-teaching, reviewing, and practicing basic foundational skills while using translanguaging with our MLL’s. Our students receive their interventions with MLL staff during small group or differentiated instructional time.
3. How has ESEA funding supported the school's success?
ESEA Funding in combination with other grant funding through our state has allowed us to increase our staffing as well as what we are able to offer to students and their families at Woodbridge Early Childhood Education Center. Our district has been very intentional with all money to ensure we are able to provide staffing that is able to assist some of our neediest subgroups. Our MLL population is no exception to this.
We have hosted evenings where we invite parents and students to come to the school for a curriculum/family night. At these events parents can take home instructional/curricular materials as well as strategies that they can use to assist their child at home. These evenings aren't successful without participation from school staff after school hours which involves funding.
We also utilize funding on supplemental materials that teachers and parents can use to help students develop their early literacy and math skills as well as English language proficiency.
4. What professional development activities were used to improve teaching and learning?
Our school and district are constantly providing teachers and staff with professional development to enhance their professional practice.
We have been focusing our professional development activities on the development of our MTSS Tier 1 and Tier 2 instruction. This has been a focus of ours for the last two years. We perform self-assessments and complete classroom walkthroughs regularly to help guide our professional learning throughout the year.
Our MLL staff provide all teachers and staff with professional development that provides teachers with strategies they can implement to help meet the needs of our MLL's.
We offer professional development that provides teachers and staff with best practices for assisting those students in their class that are multi-language learners as well as a variety of other subgroups. Another focus of our school and district is on Equity. Our teachers attend professional development focused on Equity to assist them with improving teaching and learning.
5. Talk about the cultural shift leading up to your school's success.
The cultural shift that led to our school's success was an intentional use of funds to meet the needs of our growing Hispanic population at the early childhood/elementary level. We are an Early Childhood Center and the only school in our district that services students anywhere from 2 years old to 8 years old. This means that our school is responsible for building foundational skills that they will build upon later in their school career. This is a big responsibility, one that we take very seriously. We believe that the more we invest in their growth now, the better off all of our students and our district will be in the future.
6. How has community involvement strengthened your success?
At the end of reward and honor roll assemblies we always end by having students chant as loud as they can, "We are...Woodbridge!" At WECEC, we are an integral part of our very tight knit community. We are very active in our community, making connections and interacting with students outside of school. It can be difficult to tell where school ends and our community begins.
Our district is very unique in that we are the only PK-2 building in a 4 school District where all students matriculate through each school together. This helps to develop a bond among classmates and a stronger sense of community.
At WECEC we put a focus on engaging parents and families in their child’s education. Our community involvement and parents taking an active role in their child’s education strengthens our success at WECEC.
All of this makes WECEC a very special place to live and learn. "We are Woodbridge!" and we are very proud to be "Where it all begins!" for students in the Woodbridge School District.
Stats
  • Category 3

    Selected in 2022

  • Grades: pre k - 2
    School Setting: rural
    Town Population: 17,854
    Student Enrollment: 592
    Student Demographics:

    Black/African American: 17.1%
    White/Caucasian: 47.3%
    Hispanic: 26.3%
    Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 0.2%
    Asian: 1.2%
    Native American: 0%
    Other: 7.9%

    Teacher/Student Ratio: 1:15
    % Reduced Lunch: 100%
    % ELL Learners: 25.2%
    Founded: 1969
  • PRINCIPAL:
    Dane Sears
  • CONTACT:
    400 Governor's Avenue
    Greenwood , DE 19950
    302-349-4539
    dane.sears@wsd.k12.de.us