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Roxbury Weston Programs gives out honors at 'Celebrate the Dream'
By Kara M. Fleming
Weston/Wayland Town Crier
February 14, 2008
For 43 years, the Roxbury Weston Programs has held true to its mission to provide full access to an excellent education in order to help make the futures of the children served brighter and better.
 This year, the Roxbury Weston Programs annual spring benefit, "Celebrate the Dream," will honor the people and organizations that have helped Roxbury Weston maintain its mission and have been advocates for the importance of high quality early education and care.
The president of Wheelock College, Jackie Jenkins Scott, is scheduled to accept the Roxbury Weston Programs 2008 Community Leadership Award for its outstanding Field Scholar Program, which has allowed for individuals with associates degrees working in the child care and education field to earn their bachelor’s degree. Teacher development is a key element in providing high quality early education and the direct purpose of Wheelock’s field scholar program is to place more highly qualified teachers back into center-based programs.
Two of Roxbury Weston’s after-school teachers, Leslie Jordan and Karen Peterkin, are among the first group to graduate from the college’s new program, which started in January 2005.
"These practitioner scholars, along with the Department of Early Education and Care, RoxWes and Wheelock together made possible what no one entity could have accomplished alone. This is a shining example of positive change," said Winifred Hagan, executive director of Roxbury Weston Programs.
More positive change toward high quality early education and care is evidenced in First Lady Diane Patrick’s work in promoting its importance. The First Lady was once a public school teacher and she has been working closely with her husband on early education and care issues, which is why she is being honored with The Roxbury Weston Program’s 2008 Founders Award.
"The quality of a child’s early start influences the success of that young person well into adulthood. It is critical that our children get the tools, skills and nurturing that they need at such an important time in life," said the First Lady, which echoes the mission and focus of the nonprofit Roxbury Weston Programs since it was founded in 1965.
The final award of the evening is Roxbury Weston’s 2008 Craigwell Service Award which is being presented to Bain Capital Children’s Charities and Weston residents Jennifer Pyle and Ben Nye.
Over the last several years, Bain Capital Children’s Charities not only has allowed many children in the Roxbury Weston community to benefit from a high quality educational program, but also Bain Capital Managing Director Ben Nye along with his wife Jennifer Pyle have been active and involved supporters and advocates for Roxbury Weston for many years, both through their association with Bain and privately.
The "Celebrate the Dream" benefit will be held Saturday, March 8 at the Campus Center of the University of Massachusetts at Boston. It will bring together members of the Boston and MetroWest communities, as well as local media and business communities to raise money and celebrate Roxbury Weston Program’s long-time leadership and focus in providing the best in early education and care through its two nationally recognized and aligned curriculum programs, the Roxbury Weston Preschool and the after-school program Children Achieving Through Community Hope (CATCH).
Guests will be entertained by jazz music performed by Enfusion as the evening’s fundraising, through live and silent auctions, will be emceed by Boston radio personalities Stella Mars and David O’Leary. All money raised will be used toward Roxbury Weston Programs’ scholarship fund and teacher development as well as toward the goal of replicating the after-school program.
Currently two-thirds of the children enrolled in both RoxWes programs receive financial assistance, which is funded through generous private and corporate donations, not state funds.
The two NAEYC accredited programs educate the whole child in an inclusive setting of race, class and culture through an aligned curriculum for grades pre-K to 3. The CATCH after-school program for children in K to 3 is located in Roxbury and is designed to provide opportunities for academic achievement while enriching each child’s educational experience. The preschool, located in Weston, serves an equal number of children from the inner city and the MetroWest suburbs.
For more information on Roxbury Weston Programs or the "Celebrate the Dream" benefit including ticket information, visit "www.roxwes.org"
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Accreditation for Roxbury Weston Preschool
By Kara M. Fleming
Weston/Wayland Town Crier
November 15, 2007
A decade ago, the Roxbury Weston Preschool volunteered to be measured against an exhaustive set of national standards developed by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). The 2007 school year marks the preschool’s 10th year with accreditation by the National Academy of Early Childhood Programs.
There are 11,000 early childhood programs in the U.S. accredited with NAEYC, which represents only 8 percent of all early education programs across the country. For Roxbury Weston Preschool to maintain its accreditation for 10 years is a distinction shared by very few.
"I began introducing the (NAEYC) standards from the time I was hired in January of 1996," said Executive Director Winnie Hagan. "(The accreditation process) is a comprehensive self-study that really examines every nook and cranny of the program. It was a great vehicle for improving quality."
NAEYC accreditation standards are stricter than those of the state licensing board. Initial receipt of accreditation has a term of five years with the condition that the program submits a required self-study every year so as to maintain their high quality status and improve their program according to the latest  NAEYC standards.
"Operationally, accreditation is a condition of existence, if you do it right," said Hagan. "We work with the standards in a constant and ongoing way, always looking to them as the benchmark for measuring ourselves and the quality of what we are doing with children and families."
The NAEYC standards and accreditation criteria are focused on the children and ensure that a child’s growth and development is promoted in a nurturing environment as each child’s individual needs are met.
A 10-member commission working with research teams consisting of educators, administrators and researchers from around the country developed the standards.
With Hagan and her dedicated teaching staff applying the early childhood program standards to the already existing culture of diversity of the school, the Roxbury Weston Preschool has received several merits of excellence and commendations over its 10 years from NAEYC.
"In our case, we received commendations for particular aspects of our program which clearly met or exceeded the standard," said Hagan.
In fact, the Roxbury Weston Preschool is one of the few early childhood programs in Massachusetts that provides a pre-K to 3 aligned curriculum to children in both the inner city and Boston suburbs.
"Not only do we provide a top-notch education for these children, we do so in the context of racial and cultural diversity," said Hagan.
The preschool integrates the subject-matter focus of Weston’s elementary school curriculum with the child development focus of early education in an environment of mixed race and class to raise the educational achievement of all children.
This hard work is not going unnoticed. Boston Public School Director of Early Childhood Programs Jason Sachs, and his associate Pat Butler, are scheduled to tour the preschool with the nine Schott fellowship principals to observe the developmentally appropriate practices the preschool employs.
"Tolerance for and exposure to racially and culturally diverse peers is key to the success of any democratic community," said Hagan. "We are teaching this at a young age so that seeds of understanding and acceptance are planted within the future leaders of our communities.
"By providing access to high quality education we are enabling all children to develop the social, emotional and cognitive skills required to achieve in school."
Other commendations for excellence given to the Roxbury Weston Preschool were teacher-child interactions, leadership and administration.
"The founders could not possibly have anticipated the durability and the positive long-term impact of their efforts, when Roxbury Weston was started as a biracial summer camp in 1965," said Gene Ritvo, one of the school’s founders over 40 years ago. "Endurance and quality have gone hand and hand."
"Roxbury Weston Programs continues to be a leader in the latest educational practices to ensure that when children attend our programs and move into public schools, the children are better prepared for their educational futures and are helping to close the achievement gap," said Courtney Elliston, president of Roxbury Weston Programs’ Board of Trustees.
Roxbury Weston Programs also houses Children Achieving Through Community Hope (CATCH), another NAEYC accredited program awarded with merits of excellence for its curriculum. CATCH serves children in K to 3 in Roxbury and provides after-school educational enrichment to help children achieve greater success in school while nurturing their overall growth in developmentally appropriate ways.
For more information on Roxbury Weston Programs visit "www.roxwes.org"
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