To whom it may concern:

In the past five years, Georgia Southern University’s Child Development Center (CDC) has advanced children based on developmental ability. In March of 2015, children had started to transition to the next class up, and parents who had been on the waiting list for the infant room had been contacted to be informed that their child would be starting in the Infant Room the same month. Transitions were halted until the new director of the CDC had started employment here, and did not continue once she began to work here. At the Parents Advisory Committee (PAC) meeting on Thursday, March 26, 2015, it was stated that this policy would be changing. Instead of children advancing when developmentally appropriate, they would now be advancing as a cohort each August. This information was disseminated through word of mouth.

While this is a good practice for children who are of school-age, this is not appropriate for children aged newborn-4 whose cognitive and motor skill development advances so rapidly. It is detrimental for children who just miss the August cut-off, as well as children who are born just before the cutoff of the following year, to be in the same class. Additionally, allowing admission once per year historically has not provided adequate enrollment and hence funding to support the educators and facilities that are necessary to keep the CDC functioning as a lab for Early Childhood Education students.

As parents of children who attend the CDC, we are concerned that this change in policy will negatively affect our children, as well as the financial situation of the CDC. We believe that if one of the concerns regarding mid-semester advancement is the use of the CDC as a lab for Early Childhood Education Majors, an ideal change to the policy would be to transition children just before the beginning of each semester, in January, May, and August. This would eliminate the concern regarding lab students being assigned a child who would transition mid-semester, as well as maintenance of a full facility each semester.

We, the undersigned, propose the following actions be taken:

· Transitioning of children who were to move up in March of 2015 is resumed immediately.

· When a change in policy is to take place, a memorandum be sent to all parents one month in advance, so that parents may have adequate time to voice concerns and proper considerations be discussed before the policy change is implemented.

· Advancement continues to occur at a developmentally appropriate time.

OR

· Advancement occurs at the beginning of each semester, three times per year.