A Successful Fall Launch

The first two weeks of school determine your year. In this episode of Elevating ECE, we build a Day 1–14 Fall Launch Calendar with routines, staffing roles, and parent messages; so your launch is calm, consistent, and organized.  

Download the Free Resource

*Get The Summer Reset Toolkit here:
[https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/form/BZeeSE0BXixW2svk815Q ]

Join the Conversation

Comment below with:

SUPERVISION, RATIOS, TRANSITIONS, DOCUMENTATION, or COMMUNICATION

Then share this episode with an ECE director or childcare leader who is working to create stronger systems and a more consistent staff culture.

Every staff member. Every classroom. Every day.  

📞 WORK WITH BEATRICE:
Book a Strategy Call: https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/ece-discovery-call
Website: https://elevatingece.com

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 0:00

If the thought of back to school already has you feeling behind, overwhelmed, and responsible for everyone else's readiness, this episode is for you. Because when the doors open this fall, you do not want to spend the first two weeks answering the same questions, filling last-minute staffing gaps, calming frustrated families, and reminding your team of routines you thought they were already clear about. If your back to school strategy is hope plus hustle, September will feel exactly like last September. The first 14 days shape how you calmly transition children, how confidently teachers lead, and how deeply families trust your program. Today we are building a fall-launch playbook that makes those first two weeks more predictable, properly staffed, and proactively communicated. A strong year isn't announced. It's installed. Let's install it. So now here's what you'll learn. By the end of our time together today, you will have a practical plan for the first 14 days. Not another list of ideas you have to figure out later. We are going to build your day one through 14 fall launch calendar, a staffing reality plan for your most demanding days, a parent communication rhythm that prevents families from guessing, a morning and end of day directed checklist, and five ready to send parent messages. And if you are listening instead of watching, stay with me. I will read each calendar prompt aloud so you can complete the plan without seeing the worksheet. So open module four of your summary set toolkit or take out a notebook and create three columns with routines, staffing roles, and parent messages. You do not need another color-coded binder that no one opens after orientation. You need a plan your team can actually follow at 7:15 on a Tuesday morning when a teacher calls out, a child is crying, and three parents need answers. Let's talk about why the first 14 days matter. The first two weeks are not simply the beginning of the school year. They are when your program teaches everyone what to expect. It's like first impressions. Children begin developing routine memory. They learn where their belongings go, what happens after arrival or at the time of arrival, who helps them when they are upset, and how one part of the day transitions into the next. And then staff members begin learning what how we do things here actually means. What does it look like? Not what the handbook says, what does it really look like on the ground or in the day-to-day? Not what was discussed during a three-hour training. They learn what your program consistently reinforces in real situations. And families begin forming trust habits. They notice whether they receive updates, whether questions are answered consistently, they look at what the communication looks like, whether transitions seem organized, and whether the staff appear to be confident and if they're welcoming. When leaders do not intentionally design for the first 14 days, people fill the gaps with improvisation. One teacher handles arrival one way, another teacher does something completely different. One family receives a detailed update, another family hears nothing. One classroom follows the schedule, another abandons it by 9:30, is not following it at all. That inconsistency creates more questions, more interruptions, and more decisions for the director to have to make. Let me say this plainly. Every unanswered question eventually becomes a director's interruption. That is why your full launch cannot live only in your head. It must be visible, assigned, and well communicated. Your launch is a system, not an event. A back to school night or an orientation day is an event. Opening day decorations are part of an event. Matching staff shirts may support the event, but the launch, the launch is a system that determines what happens after the decorations come down and the first day photos are posted. Let's talk about the three pillars of a calm fall launch. What does a successful fall launch look like? Every day in your fall launch calendar is built around three pillars. Pillar number one is routines. First, what do children and staff need to do consistently? This includes arrival, classroom entry, your sign-in process, meal time transitions, rest time, toileting time, dismissal, cleaning, documentation, and your communication procedures. A routine should not depend on who happens to be working that day. If the routine changes every time the staffing changes, it is not yet a program routine. It is an individual preference. Consistency does not mean that every classroom has to look exactly alike. It doesn't have to be exactly identical. It means families should not feel like they have enrolled their child in three different centers depending on which teacher opens the doors or opens the classroom for the day. Pillar number two is staffing roles. And this is about who owns each responsibility. Ask yourself that question. Who owns each responsibility in my program? Do not write staff will support arrival. Which staff member? At what time? In which location? Will support the parent how? And who covers that responsibility if the assigned person is absent? Vague responsibilities create invisible gaps. Your plan should identify the director's role, the lead teacher's role, the assistant teacher's role, the floater's role, and the person responsible for monitoring the coverage and then what the backup plan is. Who's responsible if those people are not in place? Because I thought she was doing it is not a staffing strategy. And neither is looking around the building for one dependable person who always fixes everything. Who is most likely you? Pillar three is parent communication. Ask yourself this question: What do families need to know before they have to ask? Families do not need a daily essay, they need clear, timely communication that answers the questions already on their minds. What should we bring? How did the first day go? What is the new schedule? What is on the menu? Who should we contact? Is my child adjusting? How are they doing? Especially if they drop them off in the morning and they're crying, right? And having some issues with attachment. How are they adjusting? Later in the week, has anything changed? Is it has anything changed with programming that we should be aware of? Proactive communication reduces anxiety for families and prevents your team from responding to the same question 20 different times. If you plan routines without staffing roles, the day collapses. If you plan roles without family communication, questions and concerns escalate. If you communicate without creating consistent routines, your message does not match the family's experience. You need all three. All three are equally as important. Routines plus roles plus communication equal a calm and successful fall launch. What does it look like to do it right? What does a done right launch look like? A strong launch does not mean nothing goes wrong. This is not realistic in early childhood education. We know that as things come up, we have to address them. So that's not realistic. But a strong launch means you have built opportunities to notice what is going wrong and to be proactive and plan for them ahead of time. And then if they happen and you're not prepared, respond early and then reinforce what is working. Here are six checkpoints inside your 14-day plan. Day one, you want to focus on relationships before curriculum pressure. Because the focus of day one is about safety, connection, and orientation. Children need to understand the environment. Staff need room to observe. Families need reassurance. This is not the day to prove how much curriculum your team can complete. Can I tell you a secret? The first day of school is not on your lesson plan. It is whether the child feels safe enough to learn. That's what we focus on. So now by day four, we want to look at a gap check. We want to stop and reflect. So by day four, something will be different from what you planned. You'll notice that something may need to be revised. There may be a portion that you need to reflect upon and make revisions. A transition may take longer than expected, is an example of that. Coverage may be thin during breaks and you may have to readjust. A family procedure may be confusing. A classroom may need more support. And so you have to figure that out as you go if what you plan does not work. So day four is when you identify the gap between what actually happens and what your real norm is, what the new norm is for your program for that school year. And every school year will look different. By day seven, your staff no longer need another long presentation. They need a focused reminder tied to what actually happened during week one. So they need to see how it relates to real life. So choose one skill, spend 10 minutes reinforcing it, then tell staff exactly what you expect to see. And we talked about this a few episodes ago when we talked about micro training, right? When you have a smaller amount of time, you can use it more effectively or and more intentionally to ensure that staff get the information and that they get a chance to practice it and then be able to reflect. Training is not complete when information is presented. There are some additional things that you need to do. Training is complete when the expected behavior becomes visible in the classroom, right? And so that's why we go in after we give the information, give them a time to practice the information, but then we have to go in and do observations and ensure that it's being implemented. So when you see it, that's when you know they got it. And then by day 10, you want to make sure you have proactive parent affirmation in place. You don't want to wait until there's a concern to contact families. As soon as it comes up, you want to make sure that you respond or communicate it to them as soon as possible. Every family should receive positive, specific, a positive, specific message about their child. They want to know how the first day went. They want to know how the child is progressing. Not simply they had a good day, but they would like some details. Let them know in detail how the days how the day went. Tell the family what the child is learning, attempting, enjoying, or becoming more comfortable doing. By day 12, you want to do an accountability check. Day 12 is when you use the Model 3 audit tools to confirm that your new non-negotiables are visible. Our schedules posted, our attendance and ratio procedures being followed, our daily routines complete, our daily reports complete, our classroom agreements being reinforced. Accountability should not arrive as a surprise at the end of the month. It should be something that you are intentionally monitoring every day. By day 14, the launch should be complete. Day 14 is your opportunity to reflect on everything, to celebrate the progress and to prepare for the next 30 days. What worked? What didn't work? What do we need to change? This is also when you send families a commitment message that communicates what they can expect from your program moving forward. And so you may not have been perfect with your communication initially. Your commitment statement can say this is what we're committed to do moving forward by way of communication. This is not unnecessary paperwork, that is stability by design. Okay, let's go into our live demonstration together. And so this is our summer reset for a strong fall launch. And so this is what we have been working with. It contains all of our tools for the entire month of June that we have been going over. Each episode had its own resource. So we are going to the fall launch playbook, which is the last resource in this toolkit. Here we are. Alright, I think that's a bit better. And so this calendar will give you the day, the routines, the staffing roles, and the parent message. So for day one, first day of school, that you want to have your routines in place, your arrival protocols, classroom orientation. And ideally that should have happened before day one, uh so that parents so that parents are aware. So optimally, the orientation would have happened, you have the back to school orientation where you tell the parents, make them aware of all the expectations for the school year for everything that happens, right? But then we're talking about the classroom orientation that this is our classroom, this is where your children will be learning. If you have time during, if you're able to do an orientation prior to, it's also good to have the teachers there where they can also give a tour of the classroom so that parents get that have that opportunity. But if they don't, on the first day, you can have a greet and meet and let the parents visit the classroom so that they can see and understand what the classroom does, the classroom schedule, how they plan to communicate, just an opportunity for relationship building circles. And so directors can greet at the door, lead teachers can come in early, make sure that the room is set up and the floaters can also trans provide transition support. And then the parent message welcome email, welcome email is sent out the night before. We're so excited to see you tomorrow, right? So that's some communication that you could use. Day two, you want to re-establish morning routines, review schedules, expectations, and children with the children, right? So you want to go over with the children. It just tells you what routine you should do each day as a part of this launch, right? We're talking about intentionality here. And then lead teachers, they're anchoring the morning meeting. The assistant documents any behavior baselines, which children are attending well, which children are disengaged, which children are able to attend, which are not, right? So they are monitoring all of those different things, looking for patterns, sharing, and so the communication to the family would be share one classroom highlight. So the communication to the family would be you sharing one classroom highlight with the parents via via an app or using an app or a board. We use Class Dojo in our programs, so you can use something like that, but any type of parent communication app that you use or have it posted on a board somewhere. Day four is the full schedule run-through. Identify any gaps, right? So you're slowly acclimating the children to this new schedule. And the staffing roles, the coverage captain or your teacher in charge is active and supporting with this, but they track the ratio disruptions, right? Because we're we're we're looking for patterns here or inconsistencies or places that we need to correct, right? We're looking for gaps during this time as well. So we're looking for any gaps that may not have happened, and then they debrief with the director toward the end of the school day. And then the communication to the family here is optional. Uh, but the recommendation here is a parent newsletter with weekly theme and schedule overview. And so we know as we get into the school year, usually we try to have it not be a weekly newsletter, right? That because that can be a lot, especially on teachers thinking about all of the day-to-day responsibilities. But usually classrooms will do a monthly newsletter or the site will do a monthly newsletter. And so, but this can be just kind of a startup so that you are letting the parents know these are some of the expectations, or these are some of the things that you can look forward to. Day five, this is the end of week one, and so then you do some Friday reflection, debrief with staff, celebrate week one, everyone's success as far as being able to complete a full week, right? So you talk about your wins and then you also reflect upon maybe some things that didn't go right that you would like to change for the following week. And so those that are the staffing that are responsible for this is all staff because we're gonna attend a little huddle, I like to call them. If you don't have 20 minutes to assign to that, whatever time you're able to pull them together, you would do that. And then everyone will share with each other what are the observation notes, what are some things that we noticed went well. If you're not inside the classroom, if you're outside the classroom, you may realize some things about as parents enter the building, right? But then the teachers inside the classroom will have more information on what it looks like or what occurs once they're in the classroom, right? So everyone will have their own perspective and their feedback that will be equally valuable because all of those will let us know if our systems or if the things that we put in place are actually working or if things need to be tweaked. And so the communication there is that the parent Friday message could be what children worked on and what's coming in the next week, right? And so these are just some samples of things that you can use just to kind of give you a template or help you figure out how to move in the direction of creating this 14 day calendar, right? So it's a playbook and that it gives you step by step things that you could utilize, take and And tweak and adjust it to your specific program, your specific program's needs. But it does give you some that you could use. You could use it as is, or you can modify it, but it gives it serves as a support and a resource to you to be able to guide you on those 14 days. What does that look like to be able to fulfill the full 14 days and have it be an active workbook? Day six. Now we're in week two. So we're launching week two. Reinforce your top two non-negotiables from week one, right? We talked about all those non-uh, we talked about in a prior episode, the non-negotiables. We talked about that, I believe, last episode where we talked about the consistency in the programming. So we want to talk about the non-negotiables from week one. What did we see? What do we need to now work on? And then those responsible lead teachers can post the updated classroom agreements. The director can spot observations or conduct spot interviews. The directors can conduct spot observations, right? Just to see how things are going. And then the communication to the families could be any updated procedures or schedule changes. You want to communicate that before the morning, if possible. Or first thing in the morning. Day seven, micro training session. So week one, what that topic was. So your micro training session number one, right? And you can go back to uh week one where we talked about, I'm sorry, week two where we did the the module where we did the the micro training calendar, right? So you can go back to that resource and look at it to see what we put in. And again, just examples that you could follow. You can use it verbatim if it works for you. If not, modify it to your program. So whatever it is that you put in as your lift uh list of micro trainings is what you want to go back and take a look at. Because then you'll follow that schedule. And then who would be responsible for that? It would be all staff would be responsible to attend the 10-minute morning huddle where you do this or whatever other assigned time. And then the communication is that you don't necessarily need to have a message to parents concerning this unless there is a specific need that comes up for the program. Day eight, individual check-ins. Director begins to meet with each of the rooms or each of the rooms leads, right? For at least 10 minutes to find out how things are going within the class. Are teams working together? Is it going well? And then the person responsible for this is the teacher, the I'm sorry, the director. The person responsible for this is the director who will do their room rounds and they can assign a time to do that. Lead teachers will document to children goals that they would like to work on with the children. They should begin doing their anecdotal notes. And then any communication to the parent on day eight, it can be pro personalized. It could be a personalized child update to any family who requested one. Day nine, almost there. Behavior support planning. Review any concerns from the first eight days. Are there any behaviors that you saw surface that you would need to start documenting and start doing your observations around? Start tracking and looking for trends. Who would be responsible for this would be the director and the lead teachers doing 15-minute planning meetings during rest time would be the best time because children are down, where you can utilize that time to really begin to start thinking about planning, especially if you need to revise in some way maybe your classroom rules, different things like that to ensure that you accommodate for those behaviors that you now see beginning to surface. Maybe you need to address the structure in the classroom. And then the communication to the families would be for children who have behavior plans or that we have concerns about that. We would like to begin those discussions. You can send a nine-day check-in to the families. Day 10, parent communication day, where you schedule calls or updates for enrolled families. The person responsible for this would be all staff because you want to complete daily logs by 4 p.m. And then the director returns any parent calls that they may have received throughout the day, right? So again, just giving you some examples here. And then the communication to the families would be a proactive call or a message to every family. Your child in doing your child is doing great because your child learned this this week. Or unit of study with staff. Lead teachers are responsible for this, posting the lesson plans. The director already approves it for the week. Hopefully, is it is best practice to have them submit it the prior week for the upcoming week, right? So that the director has time to approve it, or your education coordinator or education specialist or education director has time to now go in, review it, make any suggestions for changes, and then you have time to change that so that Monday morning is go time, you have it posted and it's being followed. And then the communication to the family is that you want to share what the curriculum theme is. What is that unit of study? And it it depends on the curriculum that you use, it may have a unit of study, or it may have like a theme introductory letter that can go to families to let them know of what the expectations of this new learning unit will be. And it also tells them how they can support at home. And if not, you can put that together yourself. This month we will be learning, and these are some supports, or or I will be sending home some activities for you to complete so that it enforces the same learning at home. Date 12 staff accountability check, non-negotiable audit. Again, we're still keeping those at the front of our mind, very visible to everyone. The director is responsible for this, conducting the room audit using the audit checklist. You can develop a checklist that you could use to audit and then share the results on the same day. This is what I saw. No parent messages necessary for that. Day 13, documentation review, all forms occurring. Incidents are logged. And the director review incident log, they're responsible for that. Daily reports, any sign-in sheets for completeness. They want to take a look at all of that, make sure all of that is being done correctly. Any communication to the family would be if there were some places where parents did not sign in. We would send it home or act or send home at least what the expectation is around signing your child, signing your child in and out for the day. And then here we are, day 14. And this is where we want to celebrate the reflection, celebrate and reflect, right? We want to celebrate the wins, talk about how well it went. And so week one, at the end of week one, we had we celebrated our small wins for those for that first week, right? But here at day 14, we really want to celebrate all of the days, right? Here at the day 14, we want to talk about how the whole process is going and celebrate all of the hard work, everyone working together. It's not easy to have a successful launch where you're working through the issues as they come up, but also that you're prepared and you have a plan. Everyone knows what to do or what to say, and then you actually work and implement that plan. So that in and of itself is to be celebrated. So you can do that celebration. You want to also reflect and plan for the next 30 days. Is our system working? If so, we we continue with the same thing. If there are some modifications that need to be made, then we do that. Then we have more discussion and training around that, and then we roll it out immediately, always having a working document that we're able to change it and update it as needed. And then the person responsible is the whole team, right? The whole team will come together for a meeting and talk about the wins and the challenges and plan accordingly. And then the director will also share her information, her data on the observations she's made, some things that she's seen, or he or she have seen. And then communication to the family would be, or this would be that final launch message, right? As a part of this 14 days, we've launched, or we've had a successful first 14 days. Here's our commitment to your child this school year, right? So it just gives you some ideas on how to communicate to the families, and then also we have here some take-home resources. So in the first 14 days, you want to use a morning and end of the day checklist to stay on top of every critical area during your launch window. And this is take home for you, right? Something that you want to make sure that you have a copy of so you understand what is being looked at on a day-to-day, right? That'll kind of help you remember or retain the information. So the morning checklist, it gives you some examples of what needs to be done before go time if your hours of operation, if it begins at 8 a.m., you want to have this done prior to the 8 a.m. before the children come in. So it just has some items here confirm that all staff have arrived and are in their position, ratios are met in each classroom, daily schedule posted in each room, right? And so on and so on. And then it also includes what your end-of-day checklist is, and that should be done completed by the end of day, depending on what time it is for you, whether it's five o'clock, six o'clock, you may, depending on where you are, if you run a board of ed program that is school day only, school day year only, then you may have uh your classes may close at 3:20, right? Or 220. And so depending on whatever your end of day is, is what you would put in this area. But some examples are all incident reports are supported, are submitted and logged, attendance has been reconciled and the sign out has been complete. Tomorrow schedules confirmed and communicated. Parent communications are sent for the day, director's log is updated, and so on and so on. So it gives you an idea there, and you can add more, you can replace what's there, but it is to help you. And then this is the ready to send parent messages template, right? So it just gives you you can copy, uh, you can copy these, personalize them, and then you, or you can copy and paste them, put in your information and send them out. And so what's important to do here is that you want to make sure when you start the year off that you designate a time. Uh, my programs usually do it during the orientation where we capture all of the email addresses from the parents, right? The ones that they would prefer to be contacted on, so that we do have those email addresses so that we could begin to communicate via email, right? And so this is just a welcome back, first day eve. And so we're ready for you tomorrow. So remember, I mentioned earlier we send out that message. So this is the template for it, and then end of week one, family update. There's the template for that there. Message number three for behavior and concern check-in. We talked about that earlier. There's a template for that. So not just saying to communicate to families, but give you an example of by which you may follow to be able to communicate successfully. Day 10, proactive family affirmation, right? Here is the example or the template for that. Day five or message five is the day 14 launch completion message that we talked about above, right? And so that's the template for that. And so I hope that you found that to be helpful. Gave you some templates of exact things to put in, gave you examples of a completed playbook, right? But not something that you have to follow verbatim, but you can use that as a sample, update it for just download it and and modify it with the the items that you feel need to be there for your program and use the tool. That's what it was created to do. It was it was used for it was created for you to be able to use it in your program every day. So and also to give you the tools that you need. Sometimes it's hard to it, or it can be time consuming, right? To sit down and have to just write out a whole parent message. Here, you have a template here, just revise it, and then you can cut and paste, right? So the the heavy lifting done for you. Something to just make it a little easier. So days one through five, they help you build the foundation. So now for days six through 10, what we talked about or what we went through was about stabilization and communication. And then days 11 through 14, what we talked about was locking the systems in place and documenting the progress. There you have it, a tool that you could use in real life in real time. That is your full launch calendar, 14 intentional days of consistent routines, clearly assigned roles, and proactive family communication. And the director checklist and the parent templates that we talked about or walked through. Those are extra extras for you to be able to just take and to implement into your program right away. So here's what I want you to remember: your full launch does not have to be perfect by no means. It needs to be intentional, though. Your team does not need you to predict every challenge, and it will be impossible to do so. But they need you to create a clear plan for how challenges will be noticed, assigned, communicated, and addressed. Your children need consistent routines, your teachers need clear roles. Your families need proactive communication that is consistent. And you, as the director or the owner, or the leader, you need a system that does not require you to personally carry every decision, every moment of the day. Download the summer reset toolkit. That is what we went over together. And hopefully you have your document already where you were able to follow along with us. If not, you can access the link in the description so that you can complete the it is module four, because we're in the last week, the full launch plan. And so inside of it, as we went through the one the day one through 14 calendar, and then it also has some checklists there, some checklist items, and then some direct message parent communication templates. So take that, implement it in your program. I promise you it will help you. And then do me a favor, comment launch down below in the comments and tell me which part of your first two weeks creates the most pressure. What are you the most nervous about? Is it staffing, is it routines, parent communication, behavior support, or documentation? I'd love to hear from you. Let me know what the most challenging or the most the one that you are concerned most about is. And this is a quote I'd like to leave with you. It's by Vincent Van Gogh. He says, Great things are done by a series of small things brought together. That is what these first 14 days are: small intentional actions that come together to create a calmer, stronger, more successful school year. If you found this episode helpful, I encourage you to go and watch my episode on creating staff consistency without micromanaging. It will help you turn this launch calendar into daily staff habits that continue long after the first two weeks. And that's what we want for you. We want you to have a successful school year.