Early Childhood Education
The Parent Education course has been available at Green River for 50 years and has received a Reduction in Force (RIF) notice.
Lesslie Kessler, Early Childhood Education instructor, said the program has been re-worked to be more cost effective to the college.
Diana Holz, Early Childhood Education instructor, and Kessler said they want the program to continue even it is reduced. The program supports at-risk children and offers help to parents who require assistance in raising their children. Intructors of the program reach out to families and help prevents court orders.
Relationships with families and their children is critical, Kessler said. The Parent Education course helps to promote those relationships and make students aware of children with special needs.
“The program is the same age as spam,” Holz said.
Holz said by eliminating the Parent Education course the college is devaluing children and parents due to a lack of info.
The Montessori Track also received a riff notice. There are only three Montessori programs in the state Kessler said, but the one offered at Green River is the only track available at a college.
For the program to grow it needs accreditation but the college won’t support Early Childhood Education, Kessler said. National certification from Montessori Accreditation Council for Teacher Education would help the program survive Holz said. Without the the accreditation it is hard to fight for the program. Even though it is small in America, Montessori education is big in China and international students find that the program is more useful to them Holz said.
Holz and Kessler said they will be fighting for their programs but they need to full data to properly explain why their programs should be saved. Early Childhood Education instructors gave a presentation for the Program Prioritization Process committee, but Holz said they have heard nothing about their program afterwards.
“We have been given no direction,” Holz said.
Holz said they want to go through the program review process, which is a difficult ordeal but reveals all the data and information about a program to the college. The program review looks at why there is a decline in enrollment or other factors that contribute to a failing program, Holz said but it also looks at options to increase enrollment. Manufacturing went through a program review and became viable again after a severe decrease in enrollment, Holz said.
Cutting programs scares students Kessler said, which impacts enrollment as students stop signing up for classes in fear of it being cut before graduating. The process is also too fast, Kessler said and they are worried programs will be terminated too quickly.
“Autobody was just gotten rid of instantly,” Kessler said.
The plan going forward with the RIF notices is for students to go into other programs, Kessler said. However, there are concerns that there wont be space in other programs for those students, and Kessler said that it will require the college to hire more faculty. This process will ultimately lose the college money, and it is a gamble that students will remain at Green River after their program is shut down, Kessler said.
“In society, you can’t just toss everything out because of money,” Holz said.
