About Our School
Auburn Early Education Center (AEEC) is a public Title I school that provides a kindergarten program for all eligible five-year-old children who live in Auburn, Alabama. Our facility is divided into five pods, housing 26 kindergarten classrooms, multi-purpose room, media center, music room, computer lab, science lab, and after school program. In addition, there are four courtyard areas and two playgrounds.
INSPIRE all students to achieve their potential
EDUCATE all students to use and evaluate knowledge
EMPOWER all students to be responsible, productive citizens
The vision of Auburn Early Education Center is to provide meaningful, integrated experiences that nurture a child’s natural curiosity necessary for life-long learning.
The goals, objectives, and strategies guiding Auburn Early Education Center are based on the following shared values and beliefs:
Our Mission
The mission of AEEC is to provide meaningful, integrated experiences that nurture a child’s natural curiosity necessary for life-long learning. Our commitment is to provide a developmentally appropriate curriculum, fostering the development of the “whole” child, socially, physically, emotionally, and intellectually. At AEEC, we want children to develop a “love of learning” and a sense of confidence in their abilities. Students are immersed in a print-rich environment and engaged in meaningful language activities that focus on their needs and interests and the advancement of literacy. We celebrate our children’s successes and encourage them to do a little more than they did the day before. Our faculty is constantly evaluating our curriculum to ensure that we are providing learning experiences that meet the individual needs of children. We have established a learning community where each child is a valued and respected member. We believe that every child can learn and hold high expectations for our students. Our primary goal is the success of all students, and our curriculum is a driving force in meeting this goal.
Our Curriculum
At Auburn Early Education Center (AEEC), literary achievement is the cornerstone of our literature-based curriculum. Our language arts program focuses on learning that is active and purposeful and fosters a climate of trust that is child-centered and encourages risk-taking, listening, speaking, reading, and writing through holistic experiences. Children enter kindergarten as emerging readers and writers, and we provide daily activities for the development of reading and writing. We believe kindergarten students should engage in oral discourse for the purpose of expressing their ideas, communicating with others, solving problems, sharing stories, presenting acquired knowledge to others, exchanging points of view, and persuading others through dialogue. We believe all children should engage in written language activities that focus on the writing process in order to document information and events, to communicate through email and letters to parents and friends, and to document personal stories and life events.
The environment of our school supports literacy development. As you walk down the halls, you see student work, showcasing our emerging writers. Classrooms are filled with print that includes charts/poems, webs, graphs, student writings/labels, and books. This environment provides written text that students use as resources for their writings, assisting them as they make connections between oral and written language. Confident readers and writers are the result of our strong focus on literacy.
AEEC children are afforded opportunities on a daily basis to engage in activities that advance oral and written language skills for communicating their ideas to others. These opportunities offer relevant and authentic experiences in reading, writing, speaking, and listening that develop critical and creative thinking. By implementing a thematic approach to instruction, language arts skills are integrated throughout the total curriculum. Students begin to research themes by reading books, searching the Internet, participating in discussions, webbing ideas, and constructing KWL charts. They continue to advance their knowledge through theme projects and utilize the Internet and email to help them complete these projects. All student projects must have written documentation for the purpose of sharing knowledge with others. Students use digital cameras to assist with documentation and sharing of information related to the learning process.
AEEC implements various programs to ensure that all children have opportunities to meet the state’s proficient level of student achievement. These strategies are based on student assessment, and the curriculum is adjusted to meet the needs of young children. Some of these strategies include state assessments, a reading coach, academic instructor, progress monitoring, counseling committee, child study team, parent conferences, individualized learning plans, and transition efforts for rising kindergarteners and first graders.
Parental & Community Involvement
Parental involvement and community support are vital to the success of our program. At AEEC, our parent volunteers and community members work with students, make presentations, and assist with school events. Our organized volunteer program is called M.U.D. P.I.E. Our PTA is an active group, and parents attend STAR Nights (Students and Teachers in Academics and Recreation) to participate in activities with their children. Also, we are fortunate to have a partnership with Auburn University and are delighted to work with their students in our program.
Awards
AEEC has been recognized with the following awards: 1999 U. S. Blue Ribbon School of Excellence, 2005 Intel and Scholastic Schools of Distinction, 2005 Blue Ribbon Lighthouse, and 2006 CLAS Banner School.