Angela Freeman, pre-kindergarten teacher, and Holli Matthews, teacher assistant at Stocks Elementary School, were recognized on Monday by The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction’s Exceptional Children’s Division and the Office of School Readiness.

The award recognizes the exceptional work pre-kindergarten and kindergarten teachers across the state are doing in their Preschool Demonstration Sites.

The site at Stocks Elementary provides high quality preschool programs and facilitates observations that highlight developmentally appropriate practices.

Jodi Koon, program section chief with the Office of School Readiness presented Stocks Elementary with a certificate of recognition and a formal invitation for Freeman to attend the Power of Kindergarten (POK) Summer Institute at Meredith College in Raleigh.

Teachers from demonstration sites throughout the state will share their best practices that they have found to be effective in promoting literacy. Also, kindergarten teachers will share some of their experiences with preschool teachers.

The NC Preschool Demonstration Program began in 2001 and was initially funded by federal Exceptional Children funds, which were later augmented by state pre-k funds.

There are currently Early Literacy Demonstration Preschool Programs in ten school systems across the state of North Carolina. The Exceptional Children Division and the Office of School Readiness seek to enhance the quality of programs serving young children by encouraging participation in guided observations in these centers.

Each of the demonstration classrooms is serving three-, four- and/or pre-k five-year-olds and their families. The children and families reflect a wide array of cultural, linguistic, and ability diversity. Demonstration classrooms augment their framework curricula with specific literacy-based and positive behavior pre-k curricula.

Children are supported in these classrooms with multiple funding sources such as Even Start, Exceptional Children, Head Start, More at Four, Title I, Smart Start, subsidy and/or parent tuition.