SBCSS News and Press Releases

County Superintendent to Address 2005 CABE Conference

2005-02-18

SAN BERNARDINO – County Superintendent Herbert Fischer will join four other Southern California county superintendents to unveil a new preschool program at the 2005 annual California Association for Bilingual Education conference on Feb. 23 at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

The county offices of education for San Bernardino, Riverside, Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego will announce the launch of Virtual Pre-K Southern California, an innovative teaching tool for preschool parents and teachers.

The program will be announced during a press conference at 1 p.m. in Room 153 at the L.A. Convention Center.

Virtual Pre-K Southern California is part of the National Virtual Pre-K Network, the first interactive tool of its kind that was created by Chicago Public Schools, and adapted to meet the focus areas for early childhood education in California. Virtual Pre-K encourages and helps parents to play a more active role in their child’s education through a series of short video lessons, led by public school teachers and parents, along with an interactive Web site at www.virtualpre-k.org.

Virtual Pre-K is available in English and Spanish, and the video lessons are available on either CD-ROM or videocassette. There are a total of 25 video lessons, including essential preschool topics, such as emerging literacy skills, understanding feelings and exploring cultural heritage. Virtual Pre-K also offers lesson plans for teachers and activity recipes for parents, and it serves as an innovative communication tool for preschool teachers and parents from coast to coast. Through Virtual Pre-K, parents and teachers can exchange thoughts, questions and explore what other parents and teachers are doing with their children through discussion boards and chat rooms. Virtual Pre-K is being distributed throughout the five county regions with an on-going teacher and parent training to familiarize users with Virtual Pre-K. For more information, please visit www.virtualpre-k.org.

CABE is a non-profit organization that was incorporated in 1976 to promote bilingual education and quality educational experiences for all students in California. The organization has 7,000 members with over 60 chapters/affiliates, working to promote equity and student achievement for students with diverse cultural, racial, and linguistic backgrounds. The group recognizes and honors the fact that Californians live in a rich multicultural, global society and that respect for diversity makes for a stronger state and nation.