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Excerpt: "Last week’s 20th Annual Summer Institute on Early Childhood Development brought together a community of changemakers aiming to Shape the ECE Workforce for Canada’s Future. Researchers and practitioners from multiple disciplines addressed the working conditions of early childhood educators and explored strategies to stabilize and grow the workforce."

Excerpt: "Families in Hammonds Plains will see more early learning and child-care spaces opening in their community this summer. It Takes a Village Child Care Centre on Parkland Drive in Halifax is opening a second location at 1432 Hammonds Plains Rd. The new centre is expected to create about 75 new child-care spaces for toddlers and preschool-aged children. “Nova Scotians have told us they need better access to child care, and that’s exactly what we are providing,” said Education and Early Childhood Development Minister Becky Druhan. “These new spaces are part of our updated expansion plan to increase access to child care across the province.” This is the first project approved under the Province’s new Minor Infrastructure Program for New Early Learning and Child Care Space Creation that offers funding to licensed not-for-profit child-care providers to quickly renovate and expand."

Excerpt: "Speaker, I rise in this Honourable House to highlight our government’s efforts to improve access to early learning and child care in the province. These efforts have been recognized in a recent report by the Atkinson Centre for Society and Child Development, which ranks Newfoundland and Labrador fourth in the country amongst all provinces and territories when comparing governance, funding, access, the early learning environment, and accountability. Speaker, our government has been listening and responding to the needs of families, service providers, and the early learning workforce. We have implemented recruitment and retention initiatives for early childhood educators; we have provided incentives and funding to increase the number of early learning and child care spaces; and we are continuing to ensure that regulated child care is high quality, affordable and inclusive."

Next month, Prof. Katherine Entigar (AECD) will be traveling with three OISE graduate students to represent the U of T at the 2024 U7+ Student Challenge Summit.

Excerpt: "The Department of Education and Early Childhood Development will partner with the Literacy Coalition of New Brunswick to provide training to 400 early childhood educators over the next four years. Beginning this fall, 100 of them in the anglophone sector will be invited to participate in a training program entitled Talk, Sing, Read Everyone, Everywhere! The training includes coaching and mentoring so that early childhood educators can feel confident about their skills."

Congratulations to Dr. Lois Maplethorpe, 2023 Leithwood Award recipient

The 2024 Leadership Forum: Trailblazing in Higher Education was an overwhelming success, attracting 346 registrants from diverse institutions and countries.

Notre série de conférences du CREFO pour l'année universitaire 2023-2024 s'est achevée le 4 avril avec une conférence de l'auteur torontois Gabriel Osson.

Excerpt: "Cellphones and mobile device restrictions in schools: Every school will have uniform policy to have cellphones on silent and removed from sight at the beginning of instructional time – the new default unless explicitly directed by the educator; If students do not comply, cellphones are immediately surrendered where there is no explicit allowance from the educator; For students in kindergarten to Grade 6, there will be a cellphone restriction for the entire school day, but they may be used with permission from the educator; A strengthened personal mobile devices policy with clear responsibilities broken down amongst staff and a requirement for best practices to be developed and shared with staff; Social media sites will be banned on all school networks and devices; Requirement that educators and staff model behaviour and not use personal mobile devices during class for non-work related reasons; New ban on sharing and recording videos or photos of individuals without explicit consent; $500,000 for digital literacy supports for students during the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years."

OISE GSA Elections Candidates 2024-25

Presented by Kerry McCuaig, Senior Policy Fellow, Atkinson Centre for Society and Child Development; Emis Akbari, Professor and Program Coordinator, School of Early Childhood, George Brown College | Senior Policy Fellow, Atkinson Centre, OISE/University of Toronto; Shelly Mehta, Professor and Program Coordinator, School of Early Childhood, George Brown College, at the 20th Annual Summer Institute: Shaping the ECE Workforce for Canada’s Future, April 26, 2024

Excerpt: "New Brunswick has ranked first in a report on early childhood education released by the University of Toronto’s Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. “Our province is committed to providing quality early learning and child-care services to New Brunswick families, and the results of this report show how far we have come,” said Education and Early Childhood Development Minister Bill Hogan. “Those who work in the early learning sector are shaping the adults of tomorrow, and they are supporting families who are at work and studying. They work incredibly hard every day and we deeply appreciate the work they do in laying the foundation for our youngest learners.”"