September 25, 2017

Dear Colleagues,

As you know, I am currently a graduate student at West Chester University of

Pennsylvania, working toward my Masters of Education (M. Ed.) in Early Childhood.
As part of my Masters degree program, I will be conducting an action research
assignment in my EDK classroom in order to gain a better understanding of how my
class meeting time, or circle time, impacts our Extended Day classroom and the
students social interactions and peer relationships, if at all.

During a six to eight week period, Ill be observing my EDK students as they engage
with peers during usual every day activities. There will be no environmental
changes or alterations to the childs classroom during this research. Children will be
participating in their typically scheduled activities in the classroom, just as they
usually would. In addition to observing the childrens interactions in the classroom,
I will be interviewing the children one on one in order to gather information on
their perceptions of the social skills that are introduced. These informal interviews
with the children will occur at varied times during the six to eight week period and
will help me to gather information on whether or not children have been impacted
by our classroom meetings, based on their perceptions.

I will also be gathering some demographic information from parents/caregivers by

having them complete a brief survey regarding how often their child participates in
social groups, if at all, outside of school. This parent/caregiver survey will be kept
anonymous and will help me to gather background information on the various levels
of social interaction students in my classroom are exposed to outside of the
classroom. This will also help me tailor our class meetings to involve social skills
instruction that will meet the needs of the students in my classroom.

Finally, I would like to conduct informal interviews with you, the regular day
Kindergarten teacher, in order to determine whether you observe any language
carryover or noticeable usage of social skills from Extended Day Kindergarten
students during their peer interactions in the regular day classroom.

All data that is collected, including observations, interviews, and parent surveys will
be kept confidential and secure. There will be no references to children, staff, or
family members by name in any of my work.

I do not anticipate any risk to any participants during this project. Your
participation in this project is completely voluntary. All Extended Day Kindergarten
students will be participating in classroom meetings daily. Those children who are
participants in my research project will be observed and interviewed, as described
above, in order to gather information on the impact of our class meetings on social
skills. If parents do not agree to have their child participate, he or she will simply not
be interviewed and observations of his or her interactions in the classroom will not
be used in my research or course work. Your choice to either participate or not
participate will not impact your students status in school or our classrooms in any
way. You may withdraw your consent to participate at any time, with no penalty.

All information that is collected during this research project will be kept confidential
and secure and will not become part of any students school files or records. All
information concerning identity will be omitted from the research. Your identity and
our students confidentiality are most important and every effort will be made to
ensure that this research remains confidential at all times.

The results of this study will be used for an online website that is required in my
course, Early Childhood Researcher, within the College of Education at WCU.
Pseudonyms or codes will be substituted for any names of participants, as well as
our school in order to help maintain confidentiality. The website is a private site,
which will only be viewable by my graduate classmates, my professor, and myself. I
will be providing a summary of my research project that will be available to the
viewers, however no teacher names, family names or school names will be used.

Please return the bottom portion of this form as soon as possible, indicating
whether or not youd like to participate in this research. If you have any questions
about this research project or would like to clarify any aspects of the above
information, please feel free to contact me via email at
Lauren_byerly@solancosd.org or by phone at 717-449-1669.

************************************************************************************

Informed Consent for Miss Byerlys Graduate Research

Please check one of the following:

______________ I agree, as a colleague, to participate in the informal interviews. I

understand that there is no risk to my students or myself as a participant and that
consent to participate may be withdrawn at any time with no penalty.

_____________ I would rather not participate in colleague interview portion of this

research study. I understand that this decision will not negatively impact my
students status or participation in classroom activities.