About
VOCEL provides direct service programming for children aged 0-5 and trained and supported early childhood educators, school leaders, childcare providers, parents, and caregivers. VOCEL has expertise in adult learning and cohort-based programming and is leveraging this to implement a new fellowship program designed to equip educators with the tools and competence required to accelerate post-COVID learning recovery in their students.
Why We Invested
VOCEL has deep expertise as a program designer and operator of early childhood development and family engagement supports for CPS. Their research-backed fellowship program has great potential to provide early learning supports to a high-need student population while also adding critical capacity to schools given many administrators do not have early childhood expertise. VOCEL is an Illinois state-approved professional development provider that can issue credit to Illinois licensed educators for license renewal purposes.
Looking Ahead
Looking ahead to the 2021-2022 school year, the program seeks to partner with 10 partner schools and create a cohort of 20 teachers. This translates to roughly 750 students. By year three, VOCEL aims to create a cohort of 50-70 teachers to serve nearly 1750 students across 25 schools. If proven to be effective in its first year of implementation, VOCEL envisions its Fellowship supporting early childhood educators across the district and eventually beyond CPS.