Blazing New Trails - Connexions

Distinguishing Practices for Administrators 207
and among the lab teachers and faculty. From the beginning, the lab settings were an integral
component of the teacher education program, and one former lab teacher described the
relationship as, “a cooperative or collaborative relationship” among the teachers of the lab
settings and faculty. Faculty and lab teachers worked in concert to form the ever-changing
teacher education program dedicated to current, research-based educational practices. One
university administrator described this relationship as, “What is being taught in the college
classrooms must be reflected in the classrooms with children.” A lab teacher further revealed
how the lab teachers and faculty collaborated, “It is really a partnership, and we are
continuing to learn from things that they are putting into our hands, as well as, they are
learning a lot of things from us as we research and move forward.” This collaborative or
family-like spirit was present in the climate of the lab settings as a lab teacher reiterated, “It is
very important that the lab setting has a family feel and that the people that are working there
are very connected. The students feel connected, and the families feel very connected because
it is really one, huge family.”
Embrace Market Needs and Desires
The practices displayed by the leaders of the College of Education are summarized by
the old adage, “hitting when the iron is hot.” As trends and market demands emerged,
administrators seized the opportunity to expand lab setting opportunities. Triangulated data
revealed that this distinguishing practice began with the creation of the Teachers College in
1923 to boost the economy of the area. In 1969, the kindergarten lab setting was instituted as
a site for early childhood teacher preparation after the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964
provided the foundation for the National Head Start Program, and teachers with kindergarten
endorsements were needed in the region and state. A former College of Education dean
described the state demand:
The state of Texas (Texas Education Agency, TEA) and the State Board of Education
(SBOE), which is their governing body, approved a kindergarten endorsement as a
teaching credential. Until that time, there was no kindergarten in public school. When
kindergartens were started in the public schools, they (TEA, SBOE) approved the
kindergarten endorsement.
Later, in 1974, the kindergarten and the second lab setting, the nursery school, merged due to
the growing early childhood teacher market and parent demand for child care as more mothers
began working outside of the home. When national unrest with the public school systems
intensified, an educational alternative, charter schools, emerged, and the Texas Legislature in
1995 opened the door for charter campuses. University administrators quickly reacted to this
opened door by collaborating with local school district administrators to first expand the Early
Childhood Lab to house a second grade class from a nearby local school district elementary
campus and later to form a local school district campus charter school housing kindergarten
through grade four students. Data indicated that in 2008, the charter school evolved to an open
enrollment charter housing kindergarten through grade five children. Today, the Early
Childhood Laboratory and the Charter School are housed in the Early Childhood Research
Center on the campus serving infants through grade five.