Last school year, Monica Heldt found herself struggling to help the 3-year-olds in her 3K class at PS 7 in East Harlem resolve conflicts among themselves. Heldt, who taught kindergarten for 20 years before moving to 3K in 2019, had exhausted her usual arsenal of tactics so she asked the advice of Danny Gomez, a social worker from the DOE’s Division of Early Childhood Education (DECE) who supports PS 7.

Gomez visited her classroom, knelt down beside two students squabbling over a toy and modeled a simple, three-step strategy: Narrate what’s happening (“I see you really want that toy”), validate students’ feelings (“That’s why you’re feeling so upset”) and then pause.

Heldt watched in astonishment as one student obligingly shrugged, dropped the toy and skipped off to another activity. Soon she was using the same strategy throughout the day in response to a variety of situations.

“Watching Danny model and interact with the kids is so valuable,” Heldt says. “As a kindergarten teacher, my training was mostly in academics and curriculum. When Danny and our instructional coordinator come into the classroom, it’s almost like they’re teaching a course on child development and dealing with emotions and I’m practicing alongside them.”

Gomez and Lindsey “Desi” Desmond, the DECE instructional coordinator assigned to PS 7, work hand-in-hand with the school’s three early childhood teachers — Heldt, 3K teacher Jeanne Gallo and prekindergarten teacher Tiffany Adams — and the school’s administration. They spend each Monday morning embedded in classrooms at the school. Then they debrief and reflect as a team. Desmond and Gomez also lead workshops for parents, facilitate conversations with the school’s administrators and provide professional learning resources tailored to early childhood educators.

“Our teachers love working with them and are always learning from them,” says PS 7’s chapter leader, Jessica Rivera. “It’s a huge collaboration.”

Heldt, Gallo and Adams are not novice educators: They collectively have more than 60 years of teaching experience. But best practices in early childhood education are constantly evolving.

“A 3-year-old is not just a smaller 6-year-old,” says Gomez. “So much development happens in the first few years of life, and these interactions we have with young children build their brains.”

Educators’ conversations with young children in classrooms are an example of how to promote language development — as Adams puts it, to “talk with children and not to them.”

Heldt says working with Desmond and Gomez has helped her “understand developmental expectations” for young children.

“Coming from kindergarten, I was used to direct instruction,” she says. “I don’t think our school was invested enough in discovering the power of play. Desi and Danny do a lot of modeling, and when you see something modeled and it’s working, it helps you understand.”

PS 7’s educators were stunned and worried in the fall of 2022 when the DOE revealed a plan to overhaul the Division of Early Childhood Education and place the program’s staff in excess, leaving Gomez and Desmond unsure of their futures with the school.

“It was scary,” says Gallo. “We had a lot of children being evaluated for disabilities for the first time, a lot of IEPs — we really needed Desi and Danny.”

After strong objections from early childhood educators who benefited from the division’s support and the advocacy of the UFT, the DOE announced there would be no reorganization of the division this school year and embarked on a learning tour with UFT leaders to better understand the work of the DECE instructional coordinators and social workers.

“Until then, we felt like our role had been so appreciated and valued,” says Gomez. “I’m in classrooms every day, having reflective conversations with teachers. I’m bringing together all the people who are involved in a child’s life — parents, teachers, the instructional coordinator — to work collaboratively so we can attain the best outcomes for children.”

Desmond says there is “a partnership” between the division’s instructional coordinators and social workers and the 3K and pre-K sites and schools they support

“Teachers are in the classroom day in and day out, and they know what their challenges are,” she says. “We’re able to bring in another perspective or layer, and we’re in a position to differentiate support that’s really individualized to each teacher.”

Last school year, for instance, Desmond helped Adams navigate her exasperation with a group of students in the block area who were building tall block towers and then — noisily and repeatedly — toppling them over. The students were unreceptive to Adams’ suggestion that they pick a different center or build horizontally instead of vertically.

“I told Desi I was frustrated, and she sat in the block area with them and very patiently asked them about the different construction vehicles that could be building the tower and got them talking about excavators,” Adams recalled. “She’s very calm, and she knows so much.”

Thanks to the work of Gomez and Desmond, PS 7’s early childhood educators are better able to help their students grow and thrive.

“Children will tell you what they need; you just have to listen,” said Adams. “Danny and Desi help us realize that.”