In this part two of this institute, district teams will refine promising practices for TK instruction and discuss strategies for defining and implementing effective TK programs.
Bio
Jill Baker
Dr. Kill Baker provides leadership, supervision and support to the district’s 54 elementary and K-8 schools and supports the K-12 system of principals in the implementation of Common Core State Standards. Her daily work is focused on supporting principals in their efforts to build strong academic programs for all students, supporting schools in their implementation of school based intervention systems and supporting principals in using an appreciative leadership approach that optimizes staff performance.
Prior to this position, Dr. Baker led the creation and initial launchof a K-12 Leadership Development Program and served as interim support to the Office of Research, Testing and Evaluation after serving as a School Principal and Teacher. Her current efforts are aimed at developing collaborative systems within the organization that address a pre- k--12 system of excellence and working to build additional bridges between the district’s esteemed pre-school programs and the elementary years programs.
Dr. Baker earned her doctorate in Educational Leadership at University of Southern California in 2004, M.A. in School Administration at CSULB in 1998 and her B.S. in Sociology at UC Irvine in 1991.
Teresa Cooper
Ms. Teresa Cooper has been with the Long Beach Unified School District for more than 21 years. She has worked as a teacher, academic coach, content expert and professional development trainer in the elementary grades for more than 25 years in California and Kentucky. Her passion and focus has been centered on the education of 3- to 7-year-old children.
As a district literacy coach, Ms. Cooper observed the classrooms used by Gay Su Pinnell during the infancy stages of the Literacy Project at Ohio State University. Upon returning to Long Beach, she implemented and trained other teachers in phonemic awareness strategies including the name game and interactive writing. Her classroom was used as a demonstration and model classroom for other teachers to visit. Ms. Cooper has also been visited by representatives from the Policy and Practice Studies in Education from Michigan State University and was filmed by Learning in Motion.
Ms. Cooper has been a presenter at national conferences, including the National Early Education Task Force of the National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE) in Atlanta, the Early Childhood Seminar in Jeckle Island and the Kentucky Head Start Association (KHSA) State Conference in Louisville. She continues her work writing curriculum and assessment for literacy and math as well as training teachers at the district-held monthly support meetings.
Kris Damon
Ms. Damon is a transitional kindergarten coach for Long Beach Unified School District. After 15 years, her teaching career hit a high note when she focused her energies on her district’s youngest kindergartners. She developed an original pilot program called Preppy Kindergarten, which gave identified kindergartners the “gift of time.” Anyone who visited Ms. Damon’s classroom could readily experience the confidence and joy in learning that these youngest kindergarteners exhibited every school day. Currently, she provides coaching, support and training to transitional kindergarten classrooms and kindergarten classrooms with a cluster of TK students.
Nancy Hayashida
Ms. Hayashida has worked for the Long Beach Unified School District for more than 25 years. She was a classroom teacher for 20 years in the primary grades. Ms. Hayashida accepted a position with Special Projects as an academic coach in literacy for kindergarten and 1st grade.
She is currently assigned to the Office of Curriculum, Instruction and Professional Development where she supports transitional kindergarten, kindergarten and 1st grade teachers in literacy and math as well as writing curriculum, district assessments and providing professional development.
Ms. Hayashida represents the district as a current member of the Early Childhood Education Committee. The organization is a collaborative, multi-agency organization advocating for the welfare of young children in Long Beach.
Nicole Jackson
Ms. Jackson currently serves as a K-5 Literacy Coach for Long Beach Unified School District.
Previously, she was a part-time transitional kindergarten coach and a part-time early reading first coach for participating child development centers in Long Beach. Ms. Jackson taught kindergarten for 17 years. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Child Development and a Masters of Arts in Early Childhood Education. She has a National Board Certification as an Early Childhood Generalist. She has a true passion for teaching and being in classrooms with young children.
Yvette Streeter
Ms. Yvette Streeter has been an educator for 25 years, with experience as a teacher, elementary principal, new principal coach and transitional kindergarten program administrator. During the five years of her leadership at Jane Addams, Ms. Streeter led her school in making significant academic gains.
With a focus on continuous improvement, she utilized staff input to provide differentiated professional development, utilized data to select teacher leaders to share “best practice” strategies and cultivated an environment of collaboration and making teaching a public act. The leadership she provided in early literacy in kindergarten and 1st grade helped to build a program that is cohesive and exemplifies a balanced literacy program.
Ms. Streeter currently oversees the Transitional Kindergarten Program and provides leadership for two coaches and 35 teachers. As an early implementer of transitional kindergarten, Long Beach has been involved with sharing and supporting other districts’ implementation.
Teresa Cooper, Elementary English Language Arts and Math coach, introduces "The Name Game". Cooper believes that the game can be used as a device for teaching beginning literacy in transitional kindergarten.
