Families,Resources,and Community: Illuminating the Structures of Culturally Relevant Education in an Urban Early Childhood Center

Research Setting and Participants

Appletree School serves children from 18 months through approximately 12 years old, with classrooms for toddlers, pre-schoolers, and K-6 students for afterschool and summer camp programs. It is located in the center area of a large city in the Northeast, USA, adjacent to the city’s Chinatown neighborhood. The center began in 1976 when it primarily served families working in the adjacent garment district. It has been lauded locally and nationally for its consistent high quality. It has maintained accreditation through the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) for over 20 years and consistently earns high scores in the process. In the late 1990s it became one of the first Head Start programs in its state. Appletree was also recognized nationally through NAEYC through an Engaging Diverse Families award. The school is a non-profit organization that is supported by a Board of 18 volunteers from the community. For the 2018 to 2019, it served 516 children who identified as 79% Asian, 10% African American; 6% White; 3% African-American/White, Indian-White, Asian-White and Latinx-White; 2% Latinx; and >1% Indian.

During the year of data collection, the educators at Appletree included 44 teaching staff, 21 administrators and office staff, including a full family services office, 5 kitchen staff, and 25 substitute teachers. Of these Appletree employees, the individuals who consented to participate in the interview component of the study included 12 individuals. Eleven of these participants identified as female and one identified as male. Of these 12, seven identified as White, two as African-American, and three as Chinese-American. The participants had worked an average of 18 years at the center with a range of 4 years to 42 years. Four of the 18 Board of Directors also consented to participate in the study. All four identified as White, two identified as female and two identified as male.

Data Collection

Data collection occurred over a 6-month period and included qualitative data sources informed by an ethnographic approach. Data sources were varied and included: field notes (by all four investigators), photographs taken at the field site and artifacts, such as flyers, committee lists, job announcements, and policy statements; the school’s website, which included information on the school’s mission and values, program offerings, and teachers/staff; and interviews with 12 individuals who worked at the center at the time of the study and one focus group with four Board members. Additionally, we examined the anonymized results for the center from the annual National Association for Educating Young Children (NAEYC) survey. This survey is distributed to families annually in accordance with the center’s accreditation process and was administered by Appletree staff a few months prior to the start of our study. The survey anonymized survey results provided some insights into families’ perspectives on the Appletree experience.

Analysis and Trustworthiness

Once the data were collected and transcribed, the four researchers each individually and separately coded the data, coding specifically for structures that supported or constrained CRE and other factors connected to CRE. A cloud-based qualitative analysis application (dedoose.com) supported our efforts to conduct analysis collaboratively. After comparing our initial codes and sharing our individual interpretive memoranda, we established larger themes (Lichtman, 2012). In this second phase of analysis, we connected the codes more firmly to our theoretical framework. We then created interpretive memoranda and graphic webs. Throughout the process, we sought to identify both patterns of coherence as well as contradictions to those patterns (Tobin, 2006). Trustworthiness (Lincoln & Guba, 1985) was established through triangulation, member-checking, informal debriefing with participants, using thick descriptions, and a stance toward reflexivity as central to the research design.

Family Engagement and Community Development: A Virtual Structure

A schema of valuing family engagement and responsiveness permeated the culture at Appletree School. This was mentioned repeatedly by families in their survey responses; for example, one individual noted: “We love how [Appletree] is very community-oriented, making families feel welcomed by visiting/participating.” This was also affirmed by administrators and educators in interviews. As Eleanor, an administrator, said, “I feel it’s the culture here to respect families [and] consider their input.” This value was operationalized through specific practices, such as inviting families to serve on school-wide committees and to participate in other formal and informal school events; offering events and workshops on a variety of topics; and by explicitly asking families to become advocates for the school and for education more broadly during orientation sessions and during other events. The school’s commitment to engaging families was even indicated on its website, with sections on “Respecting a family’s language and culture” and “Families and teachers: Educating children together.” Other artifacts throughout the school demonstrated this commitment, such as sign-up sheets for afterhours events, “Parents’ Night Out” opportunities, and handmade, multilingual posters created by teachers and staff that invited families to attend field trips.

Families were invited to participate in fun and educational activities at least twice per month. Workshops often involved partnerships with educational or arts institutions in the city, such as a free family evening trip to the city’s science museum and an art workshop from one of the city’s art museums. Some unique offerings for families were “share your hometown, comfort food, and childhood memories,” and “kitchen math” with the school’s chef. Other workshops included immigration rights information, the city’s elementary school selection process, talking about sex with children, nutrition for children, and other topics geared more toward learning and development of caregivers. The school also offered free ESL classes for adults on site. At all events that were geared toward adults only, childcare and a free, hot meal was provided for all.

A key way that family engagement was operationalized was through multilingual, multimodal communication. The Family Services department included four individuals who spoke various dialects of Chinese. All events also featured a translator who spoke multiple Chinese dialects. The school also deliberately placed students with specific home languages in classrooms with teachers and other students who spoke the same language in an attempt to both make students feel comfortable and to support their bilingualism. Newsletters, flyers, and progress reports were also translated or communicated in the family’s home language. Bridget, an administrator, also described the school’s emphasis on using photos; this was a practice that all teachers regularly used to communicate with families:

Even people that speak the same language will respond much more sort of viscerally and completely to a photograph than they will to words. We try to use photos to capture what children are learning, to describe what’s going on at school, to communicate the skills and concepts that children are developing. (Interview)

This value also featured a responsiveness toward diverse families beyond language and culture. For example, Melanie, another administrator, pointed out an example of the school’s progressive approach to including LGBTQ families:

I remember coming to [Appletree] for an observation in 2006. In the waiting area, I remember seeing pamphlets available for taking. One of them read, “How to best meet the needs of same sex parents in childcare” and I remember thinking how refreshing it was to see this in an early learning environment. (Interview)

Margaret, the school’s executive director also described a simple practice that illustrated a level of schedule flexibility for working families of varied socioeconomic levels:

We don’t require that children have to be here at 8:00 every morning. Or 8:30. If a parent’s working at night, or until 3:00 in the morning, maybe the only time they get to spend with their child is early morning. So, saying that it’s more important that the child’s here by 8:00 a.m. versus spending time with the parent having a calm morning, you have to be respectful of that. (Interview)

Margaret emphasized that the school had to “look at the individual needs” with regard to families and sought to instill this value into the fabric of the school. This responsiveness trickled down to the classroom level, where families were encouraged to informally visit and interact with teachers and the children. Families were invited daily to sit and have a free breakfast with their child at drop-off, and many were observed doing so (Field Notes). Tanesha, a preschool teacher explained: “it’s also inviting the parents and when there’s an open-door policy to come in and perhaps just stay, look around the room, contribute to a lesson” (Interview).

Appletree regularly encouraged families and staff to become advocates for themselves, for their families, and for education more broadly. The website included a section entitled, “Advocacy Is Everyone’s Role at [Appletree].” Other examples included direct messaging orally, in school materials, and through “advocacy blasts” sent to the entire school community (which included current families, past families, Board members, and funders). For example, in each of the fall orientation sessions, families started the evening in a general session with the Director before moving on to meet with teachers in their individual classrooms. In each session, the Director emphasized the importance of voting in the upcoming election. She explained that there are three populations who typically do not register: single parents, people with housing issues who have to move a lot, and folks newly eligible to vote because their immigration status has changed. She then said that anyone who might fit into one of those categories should visit the front desk to fill out a voter registration form. She also explained that the school exists because of public funding from the state and that representatives “need to hear from us who care about children” (Field notes). Margaret later explained that families’ rights were central at Appletree:

We find out as much as possible [about our families], and we communicate to the family at the very beginning that this is a partnership. Families are told lots of things when they’re enrolled in any school. You have to do this, that, and they get a list of rules. What we try to highlight is what their rights are, not just what their responsibilities [are]. You have a right to confidentiality. You have a right to participate in your child’s educational process. You have a right to ask questions. You have a right to visit. (Interview)

This perspective served to reposition the role of family engagement at Appletree. Rather than expecting more traditional forms of family engagement, Appletree supported families to become advocates. Almost all of the interviewees expressed the political nature of their work as advocates and the importance of encouraging advocacy among the Appletree families. Eleanor, an administrator, explained: “We empower families to serve as advocates for themselves and their children. That’s a form of respect. We want to ensure that they have the resources to do that” (Interview).

Continuous Reflection and Responsiveness: A Virtual Structure

Second, a schema of continuous reflection and connected responsive action was embedded in the school culture. This was operationalized through specific professional learning (PL) opportunities for staff, educators, and administrators on issues that had emerged organically at Appletree. Melanie, an administrator whose role involved professional learning, described this as a “collaborative concept and approach” (Interview). Some of the issues that served as a springboard for PL during the data collection period included gender, the needs of Black boys, and bilingual learners. PL on race was initiated by the school’s Diversity and Governance Committees, which included educators, Board members, and family representatives after they attended a NAEYC-sponsored “Race Matters” session. After the PL, the committee invited staff members to then present the content of the training to the rest of the staff. Almost all of the participants noted the powerful nature of the training since it was personalized and led by colleagues. Bridget, who helped to organize the sessions, explained how the session melded the staff’s experiences with the theoretical material: “They were able to share their own experiences with the group. So, it hit home . . . It meant quite a bit to us. It felt like it was the first time we were actually able to really share as a group. I only had really good feedback” (Interview).

Reflection and responsiveness around critical issues trickled down to the curricular and classroom levels, as the teacher participants talked about their students’ identities and experiences with institutionalized racism. For example, Faith, an African American preschool teacher who had been at the center for over 20 years, explained a situation that emerged in her classroom:

I had one student that didn’t like that she was Black. I explained to her how proud we, her teachers, are to be strong Black women and just telling her she comes from a great history of Black people. [But] one important lesson I learned myself was to make sure that I had chocolate people [represented in the classroom]. We had like Barack Obama, we had Mandela up, but they were more lighter-skinned. And I was like, “Oh, we made a big mistake. We need to put some more brown-skinned people up.” And we did that. (Interview)

Faith continued to describe the ways that she used the situation to think carefully about representation and how Appletree was being responsive to the needs of Black students. Moreover, she realized that the work needed to be deliberate: “[W]e were like, “Duh. We have to be intentional and put it on a lesson plan. We don’t need to wait until they say something” (Interview). This intentionality around critical topics in the classroom and curriculum also extended to gender, as a result of collaborative professional learning. As Melanie explained:

We have also collaboratively learned more about the topic of gender . . . . We had started out by simply going over the newest terminology, that in fact, is still evolving. We also started out with very preliminary ideas of “girl” and “boy” and using scenarios to reach an understanding about affirming versus non-affirming language. It was also an opportunity to take a close look at reviewing our curriculum and assess whether what and how we are teaching makes our classrooms more inclusive. (Interview)

The educators at Appletree saw this professional learning and reflection as continual, and as something that would be facilitated by the school regularly in response to issues or needs that would arise. Bridget also noted the role of communication in this endeavor:

We try to expose [issues of discrimination and racism] and explore it and be open to talking about ways that it can stop communication or a become barrier. . .both in the society at large, and maybe in the neighborhood, but as well as within the center. And we always try to keep coming back to that. We try to take all sorts of steps to be more open and to communicate and to be responsive. (Interview)

Nancy, an administrator who oversaw the school-aged afterschool and summer programs, further explained the continual nature of critical work: “It’s something that you sort of have to continually work on. It’s not something that’s sort of, ‘Okay, we’re done. We’ve worked on this.’ So we have to constantly sort of keep ourselves in check” (Interview).

People: An Actual Structure

A focus on people, as a central structure, was a significant resource at Appletree. This included the intentional selection of diverse, high quality educators, the Board of Directors, and the families and students who attended the center. In each of these areas, diversity was elevated as valuable and as a priority. First, and most visible, was the population of diverse students. The center’s geographic location, in the heart of an urban center, lent itself to a diverse student population. Since its early years, Appletree was known for being a place that attracted students from a myriad of cultural backgrounds. Faith, a current teacher, explained:

I started at [Appletree] in October of 1988, I was searching for a place that represented what I felt [our city] should look like, a rainbow. I had worked at all White programs, I worked at all Black programs, and a friend of mine told me about a childcare center in [the center of the city], he said, “I know you’re going to love it. It’s all kind of races of children that go there.” And I came down, I brought my resume and when I walked in I looked around, and I was like, “whoa,” this is really what diversity looks like. I mean, the classroom was filled with children of all cultures. It was Hispanic, African-American, it was Asian, it was Caucasian, it was beautiful. And I knew, I said, this is where I want to be. (Interview)

Families shared that they appreciated this diversity: “Having children of different races in my child’s classroom is definitely a plus and opens the door to discussions regarding race and differences with my child” (Respondent, NAEYC Survey). Appletree worked intentionally to not only meet the needs of the students within the school community, but to create opportunities for students and families to engage with the diverse cultures.

Appletree also made intentional efforts to recruit a highly diverse staff, in terms of ethnicity, language, gender identity, sexual orientation, and age. “We have teachers [who] speak English, Chinese, Spanish, Indonesian, Malay, Romanian, Albanian” (Eleanor, Interview). The leadership operationalized staff diversity by recruiting teachers through families and community networks. Over several days, Melanie, an administrator, went door-to-door at several businesses and coffee shops in the city’s “Gayborhood” area in an effort to intentionally recruit more LGBTQ educators (Field notes, 2/19). She explained:

There are ways in which we can try to increase our efforts to hire a diverse ‘work family’ who embody our mission statement and ideals. Right before this interview, for example, I was advertising employment opportunities at the center the old-fashioned way, by posting paper fliers. At this time, we are looking to hire substitute teachers. I posted fliers in cafes, libraries, grocery stores and markets in [lists a number of neighborhoods in the city] to hopefully attract a diverse pool of applicants. (Interview)

Appletree had a low teacher turnover (Field notes), a characteristic that was recognized by families as a key merit. “I love the low turnover of the teachers at [Appletree]. I think that reflects the commitment and caring generally of [Appletree]” (Respondent, NAEYC Survey). Among the teachers and staff interviews, almost all indicated a strong pride in the center because of its reputation in the city. One administrator even explained that when she was in the interview stages for her position, another colleague in the field said that she was “going to the Mecca” of early childhood education (Interview).

Administrators also indicated that teachers at Appletree were supported in their attainment of teacher certification as well as advanced degrees. Appletree was able to recruit people with genuine interest in the center and the community, including individuals without certification, because of a program funded by the state. Margaret explained:

The Teacher Education and Compensation Helps (TEACH) program is funded by the Department of Human Services . . . It allows people working in the early childhood community to go back to school and earn higher degrees while working full time . . . T.E.A.C.H. allows the scholarship to be used for non-credit bearing classes such as ELL classes at community college. So, we could hire someone whose English language was weak, but the person wanted to work, and so we were able to hire them as substitute teachers, classroom aides, ‘til they were able to get their English skills up and then get going. So, T.E.A.C.H. has been a major recruitment for us. The scholarship covers 90% and the employee pays five percent and the employer pays 5%. But the employee also gets paid release time for being in school, and gets help to pay for their books and transportation. They get a $600 bonus at the end of each contract year. So, someone realistically could get their associate’s degree in four years and leave debt free and also have received bonuses between $2,400 and $3,000. (Interview)

Even with these unique methods for recruitment as a priority, Appletree leadership shared that they were continually working to strengthen their focus on people. Several participants noted that Appletree families spoke some languages and language varieties that were not represented by staff members. In addition, Margaret indicated that there are some educators at Appletree who may not be as “open-minded” or fully responsive to the needs of all families and children:

We may have a family in which one of the adults say they are “a parent” as opposed to a mother or a father because they’re [gender] non-binary or on the spectrum, so it matters which classroom they’ll go into. . . . It’s not like I’m going to say, “Oh, I’m only gonna put children who . . . Come from different family lifestyles with open minded staff.” No, I’ll probably put them with the least open-minded staff, because it’s through knowledge that we change. (Interview)

In this, Bridget also saw opportunities for families to help support educators’ learning around gender identity and diversity. In addition, Bryan, an administrator, talked about racial and ethnic representation and noted that despite the racial diversity of the staff, Appletree did not have enough Black, male teachers. He explained:

I wish that we had more male African-American teachers. That’s something that I think a lot about. Especially right now, it’s kind of at the forefront of my mind, I sort of worry that we’re, I think that we struggle with young African-American boys at our center. . . How do we go about doing that? Or, what kind of outreach should we do? (Interview)

Bryan’s comments indicated his recognition of even more work that Appletree could do to support the needs of Black and Brown children at the center. Moreover, Bridget and Bryan’s comments indicated that the diversity of the employees, along with the PL of the staff around issues of diversity and CRE, were considered a continual work in progress.

State and Private Funding: An Actual Structure

Stakeholders described how they were able to leverage resources within state and federal systems and to attract private funding to enact their work and provide additional resources for students and families. The staff and board indicated that this was partly due to the leadership of the director, who a Board member described as “aggressive, cutting edge, creative, and an innovator” with “real significant expertise” in seeking the resources “children deserve” (Focus Group Interview). The director, Margaret, explained that they use “braided funding” which is combining resources from various funding programs. She described some of the creative strategies they use to combine local, state, and federal resources, despite decreases in reimbursement from the state:

Subsidy reimbursements have fallen far behind. Even as a high-quality center, we’re still getting only 42 dollars a day for a preschooler. They’re here ten hours a day, $ 4.20 an hour - that won’t let you park a car. Braiding subsidy with a [city initiative funding program], allows the center to be higher quality. For the same children, the center now is getting $16,000 with braided funding as opposed to just getting $8,000 in subsidy. So, the center’s quality can increase, and the teachers can get better compensated. (Interview)

Appletree also employed two part-time development staff members to seek external funding. Eleanor, one of the development directors, noted that the operating margin was “precipitous” and that they “operate so close to the financial edge even with, because basically for every preschool child enrolled we have to raise another $3,000, based on our reimbursement” (Interview). The development staff spent their time soliciting grant funding from federal, local, and private funders, with additional support from Board members who also solicited funding from their employers and networks. They also organized fundraisers and an annual giving campaign that targeted past donors, families, and friends of the school. Eleanor also explained that the school enrolled a small percentage of “private pay” families who paid fully for their children’s education. The Board Chairperson summed up the strength of the strategic revenue generation that the Director and development staff engaged in:

Being able to generate more revenue than other organizations by knowing how the system works, really knowing how the system works in a substantive way, has given the center the resources to be able to pay teachers good wages. Not what they deserve but in comparison, it’s an attractive place to work because they’re able to provide relatively good compensation, relatively good benefits, and I think that that draws quality teachers and encourages quality teachers to stay (Focus Group Interview).

Board members also played an important role as cheerleaders for the school’s quality and were often eager to be a part of the organization because of its reputation: “[When potential board members come] here and they see the group that’s here, the caliber of the comments and the participation and engagement, it’s something that you want to be part of. And also, the mission of the organization. It’s the whole package” (Board member, Focus Group Interview). The Board Chair and development team looked specifically for members who would support the expertise they needed for other elements of the center, one member noting that they had targeted and recruited board members with expertise in HR, green building, architecture, and legal. As a result, the Director and staff had access to resources in terms of individuals with varied and extensive expertise. They also had representatives from a major bank in the region who facilitated corporate support of the school, which had provided funding for a library, and other key educational initiatives. Together, the strategies used by the Director, development staff, and Board, enabled Appletree to create and draw on both virtual and actual structures that brought needed resources to the school. In essence, the leadership and board leveraged resources that directly impacted the quality of the system, for example, the high quality of the teaching staff.

Interestingly, the leadership, board, and staff saw the power of this knowledge and expertise to support the needs of children and families beyond those at the center and chose to provide PL on leveraging resources to other local schools and centers, primarily smaller, privately owned ones. One of the Board members had attended a professional learning session facilitated by Appletree’s Executive Director and described what she observed:

It just turned out to all be women but women having access to these classes [is important], sharing ideas between themselves because they really helped each other a lot . . . There [are] a lot of different organizations that could attempt to provide this type of advice but, [Margaret and her staff] are it in terms of the best people for it to come from with the knowledge and credibility. (Focus Group Interview)

As a result, Appletree was able to leverage not only their knowledge and experiences, but also their credibility as a high-quality educational center to support the needs of other schools in the city.

Implications and Recommendations

The understandings that we gained from Appletree’s case have implications for administrators, educators, and other stakeholders who want to expand CRE in their school settings. First, although an intentionality of practice is important, in our analysis of CRE at Appletree, we found that the implementation of best practices is not enough. Enacting authentic, meaningful CRE is complex and takes time, so schools that choose to seek implementation through a short-term staff professional development session on cultural responsiveness or by hiring an external consultant may not be able to get to the deeper, virtual structures that we found to be important to enacting school-wide CRE. Appletree’s case provides a model to demonstrate how sustained efforts to be culturally responsive in all areas of the school must be embedded within the core of the institution, as well as within daily practice.

We recommend that lead administrators consider more long-term, ongoing professional learning that emphasizes first learning about the foundations of CRE. A first step would be to examine equity issues or the facets of the school that constrain CRE; the equity audit model (Capper & Young, 2015) is one way for schools to collectively engage in this work. A second step would be to facilitate ongoing sessions to identify and build consensus on the school’s core values related to equity, diversity, advocacy, and other elements related to CRE. These core values should integrate CRE along with other important local, community, and contextual considerations and must be situated in current calls for racial justice and institutional reform. All employees in the building should be part of this work, including front office staff, foodservice, substitute teachers, and others who are rarely part of school-based decision-making and professional learning. Families, students, and members of the community are also valuable assets and must be integral in the process. However, we also cannot overlook the importance of actual, material resources in enacting CRE. School leaders must leverage resources in creative ways to attract quality educators and attain the financial resources needed to support high-quality programming.

These conclusions, implications, and recommendations are even more timely given the current state of the US, in which educators, families, and communities must respond to the social justice issues that have emerged from the global pandemic. Educators must also act in response to current calls to dismantle systemic racism and White supremacy in schools and institutions more broadly. Administrators, teachers, and other educators that are committed to CRE must actively and courageously commit to taking on the complex and multifaceted social, emotional, economic, and justice-related issues that are constantly emerging and evolving within their communities. Schools must also center this work in honest, productive conversations coupled with bold action to disrupt systemic racism, police violence, and injustice in the US, all of which have direct and enduring impacts on the children and youth in their care.