At a Feb. 11 Board meeting, School District No. 5 (SD5) reaffirmed its support for the Early Development Indicator tool (EDI), requesting that the district be funded to continue using this tool on an annual rather than three-year basis.

The EDI is a population-level research tool that measures developmental change or trends in populations of children by province, region and neighbourhoods.

Developed at the Offord Centre for Child Studies at McMaster University, the EDI measures the five core areas of early child development known to be good predictors of adult health, education and social outcomes; physical health and well-being; social competence; emotional maturity; language and cognitive development; and communication skills and general knowledge.

According to Board Chair Frank Lento, SD5 was one of the first districts in B.C. to use the EDI to collect information about children’s readiness for kindergarten.

“We’ve been using the EDI in our district for 10 years. As a result, we’ve been better able to plan for supports for children in school and have also worked closely with community partners to improve opportunities for children to access early childhood programs,” he said.

This includes Strong Start Programs, Ready, Set Learn events and preschool programs in the district’s communities.

Earlier this year, SD5 learned that there is no longer funding to implement the EDI research on a yearly basis and will have to reduce research to every three years, following next year’s EDI.

“Our EDI results contribute to a provincial picture of our children’s developmental needs. This is important because our provincial government benefits from understanding that we have many vulnerable learners who are entering our schools each year,” says Lento. “It’s unfortunate that access to such a valuable tool is being reduced simply on the basis of funding.”

EDI information also helps government introduce new or additional services and supports for young children. In 2010, the B.C. government introduced full-day kindergarten in response to the EDI results, which clearly showed that preschool children need more opportunities to improve their readiness to learn. EDI also assists communities in knowing when and where to offer more preschool programs and services.

Far from wanting to reduce the frequency of EDI reporting, SD5 has also indicated interest in participating in a new development tool – this time for middle school students, the Middle Development Instrument (MDI), should funding become available.

Like the EDI, MDI results will be based on a group of children, grades 4 – 7, in a region, community or school rather than individual test scores. These results would assist districts in developing programs or supports for the developmental needs of middle school students.

According to Lento, the MDI can provide a much-needed window of understanding for schools, districts and the Ministry of Education to better respond to the unique developmental challenges middle-school students face. “The middle years are very important in a child’s development and overall student success. These are the years that most determine whether or not a student graduates grade 12.”

For more information on either the EDI or the MDI, visit the UBC Early Learning Partnership at https://earlylearning.ubc.ca and search under “research”.

Lead image from: ubc.ca

SD5

Article Share