How a Kindergarten Center is Amazing with Jessica Cabeen Transformative Principal 099

Last updated on October 29, 2024

Overview: Woodson has been an all-day everyday Kindergarten Center for the past 11 years. In the past 4 years enrollment has fluctuated between 360–425 students (currently about 385 with our preschool class). 51% of our students are students of color, and we have a 61% free and reduced lunch student population. We have 16 sections of kindergarten this year–13 on the traditional school calendar and 3 on the modified (year long) calendar as they feed into the modified calendar elementary school. We have been a PBIS school for the past 5 years and this year we were award a “School of Excellence” award by the State Department for our work in established strong tier one behavioral supports for all students. This year we have implemented a behavior specialist position as well as being the second year in our bi-linguage reading pilot in which we have a spanish speaking paraprofessional front loading reading instruction in home languages of a sub section of our EL students. Last year we tried a new venue for Parent Education via videos of local “celebrities” and teachers role playing activities that parents could do with their children to prepare for K.

Bio: This is my 4th year as Principal of the Woodson Kindergarten Center. Prior to this position I was an Assistant Principal, Supervisor of Special Education (all in Austin MN) and Special Education Teacher in Saint Paul MN. Besides being the Principal at Woodson I am a facilitator for the Minnesota Principal Academy out of the University of Minnesota in units surrounding literacy, ethical leadership and RtI. This year I am also a presenter for the Minnesota Department of Education in their P3 Principal Leadership Series. I have started a blog.

Provide appropriate staff development
- Provide flipped PD
- Teachers leading PD (play center activities)
Solid Understanding of developmental milestones
- Become friends with the experts
- Adjust schedule for success of students
- School time: 8:30–2:05 with teacher prep time after school.
- No specialists to reduce transitions for students
- Teachers run everything
Parent Engagement
- Connecting with Parents
- Packers in Training
- Being a partner
- Community initiative for kids to be ready for Kindergarten, so local celebrities get in on the action for “Ready, Set, Go”
- Make videos for parents
Be more knowledgable about preschool options in the community
- Meet the pre-k providers and respect their work
- Give parents information about Pre-K options.
- Service learning opportunities for former students.