The 2010 Church Weekday Education Workshop was held July 29-30 at White Oak Conference Center in Winnsboro. Under the theme, “Start Right with the Right Start,” more than 570 teachers and directors from South Carolina Baptist church preschools and weekday child care centers received training and tools to build their programs.
Church Weekday Education officers for 2011, from left: Andrea Burriss, First Baptist WEE, Belton, past president; Cynthia Brewer, All God’s Children Preschool, Greenwood, vice president; Kelly Zytynski, Ridgeland Baptist Child Development Center, past president; Kimberly Sobeck, Summerville Baptist Child Development Center, secretary; Susan Adams, Mon-Aetna Child Enrichment Center, Union, president; Sandra Reed, CWE consultant, South Carolina Baptist Convention.“As weekday educators, we are in the unique position to start children out on the right track academically with a Christian foundation,” said Kelly Zytynski, child care ministry director at Ridgeland Baptist Church and 2009-10 president of the South Carolina Association of Church Weekday Administrators (SCACWA).
According to Cindy Morris, childhood ministry group director at the South Carolina Baptist Convention, a weekday education program can minister to the whole family. “It is a place where preschoolers and grade-schoolers are exposed to a Christian environment where the whole child is taught.”
The South Carolina Department of Social Services (DSS) requires all weekday educators to earn continuing education credits. Morris works with DSS to ensure that the training session curriculum for continuing education credits meets requirements, and attendees earn one credit for each completed training session.
The variety of training session topics at the event touched on the practical, such as the overview of blood-borne pathogens and CPR recertification. Others offered new ideas for parent education and communication, basic sign language, and how to introduce science concepts into the classroom.
Susan White, a teacher from Coastal Shores Christian Preschool in North Charleston, attended the event for the first time and said she was encouraged to know that she was on the right track in her classroom. “I have received tools for the journey, and I’ve been encouraged and uplifted.”
“Teachers attend this annual workshop to hone their skills, to be renewed, and to pick up a few new ideas they can use in their classes when they return back to teach,” Morris said.
This was the eighth year that Dana McElmurray has been a part of the workshop, and her first as a member of the event faculty. She coached preschool directors on how to build and encourage their staff, and shared ideas she uses in her work as director of North Augusta First Baptist Church’s weekday program.
In a business meeting held during the weekend event, SCACWA members from six regions statewide elected new officers. Susan Adams, of the Mon-Aetna Child Development Center in Union, will serve as 2010-11 SCACWA president.
The 2011 event will be held Aug. 5-6 at White Oak. For more information about Church Weekday Education, contact Cindy Morris at 803-227-6151, or online at www.scbaptist.org/weekdayeducation. – SCBC