Since the campus opened in 1969 we have been refining our Early Childhood Education Program to challenge people to become authentic, skillful, effective teachers of very young children. Rather than offer just a few overview classes, we have collaboratively constructed an integrated series of learning experiences that are unrivaled by any program we know.

Our educational mission is to teach adults to create learning environments where children grow into self-confident, socially adept young people. We want competence, not just knowledge, and we want to build that competence by modeling the way we want teachers to teach young children. Classes here are exploratory, experiential, and student-sensitive, operating in the same manner we want our graduates to teach young children. We want all teachers to create schools and care that is exploratory, experiential, and student-centered. In every class we teach we endeavor to create a democratic, inclusive, cooperative learning community.

We offer a 90 quarter-credit vocational degree in teaching young children. Attending full time, teachers can complete the full program in two years, but since most of them are working, they take less than a full course load. At the end, graduates receive an Associate of Applied Sciences (AAS) Degree in Early Childhood Education. That is the big one, the degree that says you are someone who can lead other staff in creating great schools for our youngest learners. Four components to our degree:

1. 20 credits of professional practice: All participants create a professional portfolio of their work with young children, documenting their effectiveness in facilitating learning and leading a classroom.
2. 30 credits of required Early Childhood Education courses: All participants complete our core courses in methods, issues, early learning, effective relationships, and parent involvement.
3. 20 credits of elective courses in Early Childhood Education: Participants may select from a rotating series of specialties in art, music, math, physical education, literacy, and other advanced curriculum choices, or they transfer in Early Childhood courses from other colleges.
4. 20 credits of general education: All participants complete the equivalent of English 101 and college level math as well as a course in US Cultures or Global Studies and one other course from the approved list.

Your community education may provide you with a welcome boost within our program and lessen the number of classes you will have to take. If you have a Child Development Associate (CDA) Credential, current or expired, you have earned 12 credits Advanced Placement in our program. This will substitute for CCE 292 Classroom Research, a required course in the program. If you have had one year of Child Development in High School, with a grade of B or better, you have earned 5 credits Advanced Placement in our program. This will substitute for CCE 101 Child Development, an elective course we offer. If you can document an equivalent number of hours of study, from workshops or in-service education, that correspond exactly to specific required courses (33 hours for a 3 credit class, 55 hours for a 5 credit class), you may also be eligible for Advanced Placement.

As a vocational, professional/technical degree, the AAS has a limited transferability to higher education at many four-year colleges. The receiving college or university (where you transfer our ECE credits to) determines which courses apply and which do not. The 20 general education courses required for the AAS degree will transfer as well as 15 credits of electives into most four-year programs.

The Evergreen State College and City University honor all of our credits in a "2+2" arrangement, so everything you take in our program will transfer. Most of our graduates continue on to Pacific Oaks College which applies most of our ECE course work, but asks that you add another 32 credits of general education courses before you transfer into their program. Other students transfer to Central Washington University which offers the a BA in Early Childhood at their branch campus at SeaTac.

We are working at articulation agreements, but few are in place so far. That hasn't stopped people from enrolling because most students are in search of competence in early education, not a K-12 teaching certificate. Many students who enroll in our classes have already earned BA degrees; some have Masters degrees. They come to North Seattle Community College because they know they want to work effectively with children younger than school age. This is the time of greatest brain development when quality early experience truly changes lives.