The Education Trust-West Facilitates Educator Listening Session to Learn About the Teacher and Provider Experience During Pandemic
Back in February, Early Edge California joined several education advocacy organizations to support the Education Trust-West’s (ETW) Educator Listening Session. The Educator Listening Session was developed in order to hear directly from educators to better understand their experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic and their needs going forward. ETW and partners recruited educators from Early Learning, elementary school, middle school, high school, and higher education and held virtual small group discussions to learn more about the educator experience specific to each level.
Early Edge staff helped support the facilitation of two of the four Early Learning listening sessions, which included teachers and providers who work with children from infancy through age 5. In the discussion session, educators were asked a series of questions to better understand the environment they are currently working in (distance, blended, in-person), how children are responding, what challenges they are facing, and how they could be better supported by resources and policies. A summary of the key findings from the Early Learning listening sessions can be found here. These findings will be used to inform the advocacy efforts, research and collateral development, and educator engagement services of ETW, Early Edge California, and partnering organizations.