More and more elementary school principals across the country are thinking about and looking for ways to provide more seamless education in pre-K, kindergarten and the early grades. Jon Millerhagen, principal of Washburn Elementary School in Bloomington, Minnesota, is one example. Millerhagen says he was not trained as an early education principal but that as he sought out strategies to improve student learning in his school he realized he needed to find out more about pre-K and early learning.

Over the past several years, he has started a pre-K program (with Title I funds) for children who were zoned for Washburn, beefed up the school's kindergarten program and focused on vertical, horizontal and temporal alignment PreK-3rd grade.

In this podcast, Laura Bornfreund talks to Millerhagen about the early education initiatives he's implemented at Washburn. He also offers some advice to other principals looking to take up this work.