Exchange Everyday

When I read the “Getting Unstuck” issue it made me focus on my career goal. Our school is going through accreditation and I actually just received our candidacy material. This process can be very overwhelming and especially since I feel as if I’m still just trying to find my way as being a director. It just so happened that I got this position the same time our school was up for renewal. This article talks about keeping your focus and setting goals. I am all about timelines and goals that was the first thing I had to learn. I’m not an organized person by nature and I have to work really hard at being organize and most times it can be very frustrating. Being a director organization can be the death of you and your program. I learned to write everything down, set timelines, goals, and keeping a calendar just to keep track of everything going on in my school.

It also mentioned to dream and not to let fear banish your dreams. I have to consciously do this because there are times where I find myself getting overwhelmed. If I start to think of what needs to be done and what we need to do, I can get overwhelmed and feel as if reaccredidation is almost impossible. I also feel that as a director, I need to emphasis the importance of accreditation but at the same time not to stress out my staff. My goal in life is not to be stressed, it’s hard but I do not see anything positive coming out of stress. It kind of reminds me of the mentality of crying doesn’t solve any of your problems. I’m not that extreme, I’m all about feeling emotions and expressing my emotions but there comes a point where you just have to suck it up and deal with it. So when I start to feel stressed, I remind myself to get cracking and do something about it.

The last point the article makes is to get moving. Ideas and creativity happens when you move your body. In an ideal word, I would love to be able to have time to do work, school, personal life and workout everyday of the week. Especially in December, it’s crazy and something has to be sacrificed. Exercise is important, it’s healthy way to let out frustration and stress, but I’m still waiting for the ideas to come in the middle of my workouts.

What a coincident that this week’s blog topic is about financing a childcare program and budget of a childcare program and what is going on in the Early Childhood arena with the state and Child Care Connection. We just had a Rainbow School meeting about the plan of action and what it will look like if this proposal will pass. Everyone is having a hard time especially with the holidays but one thing we discussed in our meeting was what will be the outcome of the significant increase in families’ co-shares. It became a reality when I had to fill out the survey from PATCH and GBA when they asked us how many children we have in our program will leave if this proposal is implemented and at what amount of children that leave will we have to lay off staff, close a classroom or close the school. The hardest part is being the director and staff that work with these families daily and know them on a personal level. These children need the socialization, structure and all the benefits of early childhood and how much they will miss out if they have to pull their child out.

I really enjoyed the marketing chapter in the book. I remember when I first started working at Rainbow School, the physical aspect of our school was highly stressed. We would have meetings about how we think our school should look like, feel like, smell like, and what do we think parents want to see when they walk in. I remember giving my first tour to a dad and he said “Man, this place smells like a preschool, it’s bringing me back to my childhood.” At first, I didn’t know what that meant or how to take it, especially since I guess I don’t know what a preschool smells like, but after reading that chapter, I realized now that he was giving our school a compliment. Now that I’m a director, I am always reminding my staff and emphasizing how important it is to make a good impression with incoming families and to keep those good relationships with families, because that’s the best marketing a preschool can have – especially in Hawaii.