On April 30, 2022, 19 administrative personnel from the CNMI Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) certified childcare programs in Saipan participated in two sessions of a training entitled, “Updated Method and Procedure for Pre-registration and Professional Development (PD) Tracker.” The training was conducted by Evergreen Learning’s Program Support Specialist, Ms. Ma. Ceilene B. Matavia at the Evergreen Learning Training Center in Chalan Kanoa. Each session lasted two and half hours and provided participants time to apply and practice the new pre-registration format and PD tracker pivot table.
The main goals of the training were to establish a standardized operational procedure specific to the new training pre-registration process, to track the required training, workshop, and technical assistance hours of each provider, for easy access and monitoring of data related to training hours, and to assist in the generation of reports for all center-based staff. After the workshop, participants were equipped to use these new tools and expected to apply the process to help their program achieve professional development hour goals.
CCDF-certified childcare centers can now access and use a Google Drive form to process their providers’ training pre-registration. This form will allow for a faster and easier training pre-registration process. In addition, staff professional development hours can now be tracked using a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet pivot table format. It will be used for data purposes and to ensure that childcare providers meet their training hour requirements, as mandated by the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) Reauthorization Act of 2014.
Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet program created by Microsoft that uses tables to record and analyze numerical and statistical data with formulas and functions. Pivot table is a tool that can automatically sort, count, and sum up data stored in tables and display the summarized data and obtain a desired report. To fully engage in the workshop, participants were given the chance to explore and practice the process, from inputting and extracting data from the worksheet, to creating the pivot table, and then tracking or calculating the total number of professional development hours of each provider. Participants expressed their appreciation and emphasized the importance of keeping track of their professional development hours independently. All were happy for the new skills acquired during the training, and they are excited to adapt and apply these new methods to their centers.
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