Long Range Plans

Mission

The mission of Portland Public Schools Head Start is to use our program strengths to build social competence in young children by enhancing children's growth and development, strengthening parents as the primary nurturers of children, providing families and children with educational, health, and nutritional services, linking children and families to needed community services, and ensuring the involvement of parents in decision making.

This supports Portland Public School's mission to:

Support all students in achieving their very highest educational and personal potential, to inspire in them an enduring love for learning, and to prepare them to contribute as citizens of a diverse, multicultural, and international community.

Core Values

We believe that:

• Social competence is the child's everyday effectiveness in dealing with both his/her present environment and later responsibilities in school and life.
• Parents are the first and primary teachers of their children and all adult behavior is a powerful teacher of young children.
• Everyone has the ability to learn and all aspects of an individual's development, including cognitive, social, emotional and physical growth must be fostered.

We are committed to:

• Establishing a supportive learning community of children, parents, and staff where each person's intrinsic value is recognized and a sense of belonging to the group is reinforced.
• Communicating respectfully with the diverse cultures and languages of our families and staff.
• Families and staff, from all cultures, working together as teams to promote respectful, sensitive, and proactive approaches of issues.
• Hearing and respecting the ideas and opinions of families and promoting shared decision making among families, governing bodies, and the staff.
• Promoting a comprehensive vision of health for children, families, and staff, which assures that basic health needs are met, wellness encouraged, and positive, culturally relevant health behaviors are promoted.
• Fostering relationships with the larger community, so that families and staff are respected and served by a network of agencies in partnership with one another and become contributing members of that community.
• Developing a continuum of care, education, and services that allow stable, uninterrupted support to families and children during Head Start and as they transition into our Portland Public Schools kindergartens.

Program Strengths

• We have certified competent, professional well-trained staff.
• We provide rich resources for classrooms and families.
• Cooperation, teamwork and collaboration among staff and families is strong.
• We have effective staff training and development.
• We deliver strong comprehensive services, both classroom based services and services to families.

Current Strategies

• Build stronger, positive and harmonious working relationships among staff.
• Strengthen systems that support communication, teamwork, and collaboration program wide.
• Explore better ways to deliver services to children and families. (Detailed implementation strategies are outlined in the Program Workplan).

Delimiters

We will not initiate any new program or service unless:

• It is consistent with and contributes to our mission.
  It is accompanied by a plan to assess its effectiveness relative to achieving our mission.