Quality Early Care and Education

School Readiness

Early Education For All

Quality Early Care and Education– This strategy will enhance the quality of early care and education programs by providing training and technical assistance opportunities for all care environments.

Quality early care and education services are offered in educationally rich environments.  Previous investments in quality early care and education environments assisted providers in attaining national accreditation.  This proved successful in increasing the percentage of licensed, accredited spaces in child care centers by 14 percent, bringing the total to 24 percent countywide.  Through this priority, a continuum of quality care environments will be established spanning from environmental rating scales to nationally accredited programs.  Funding will be utilized for professional development activities, curriculum, environmental supports, and mentoring.  The program will be modeled after the California Early Childhood Mentor Project.

The expected outcomes of the Quality Early Care and Education Objective are to increase the number of early care and education providers utilizing environmental rating scales and achieving national accreditation.

Early Education – Funding allocated through this objective will provide school readiness services in communities with a focus on engaging parents with children between the ages of 0-4 years in their child’s early learning.

The National Educational Goals Panel reports that early educational experiences increase a child’s academic health and social outcomes. The evidence based practice for early education programs used in planning will be the Head Start and Early Head Start Guidelines.  Both programs require services be delivered to families through child development staff in the homes of parents, through group socialization and in existing early education settings.  In addition to the educational components of the program, children receive developmental, health and behavioral assessments.  Families receiving services are included in program governance, and are offered education and support services.  Providing quality, intensive educational activities and experiences for young children will foster social, emotional, and intellectual growth.  Program strategies will be developed by collaborative partnerships and reviewed on an annual basis.

The expected outcomes for the Early Education Objective are to increase school readiness by providing early education experiences for all children including those with disabilities and other special needs.

School Readiness - The current state funded School Readiness Program provides Kinder-camps for children in eligible schools, countywide transition protocols for early care and education providers and kindergarten teachers, and trainings to increase communication, resources, and networking of early educators. 

School Readiness Programs first received four years of match funding from the First 5 California Commission (CCFC) in 2002.  Applications for the second round of funding are currently in progress for FY 2006-10.  The application prioritizes elementary schools for services by low Academic Performance Index (API) scores or by the predictive data elements identified in the Harvard Report.  In the 2002-2006 School Readiness Program, four elementary schools were prioritized:  Bijou Community, Camino, Georgetown and Pioneer Schools.  Reapplication for state funding requires school readiness strategies to be maintained at these schools and expand to newly identified, low API Schools.  According to 2004 API scores, Bijou Community School is the only low performing school.  As a result, services will continue in the four schools identified in the 2002-2006 Application.

According to the CCFC, school readiness incorporates four essential and coordinated elements: child development, family functioning, child health and Community Collaboration.  The 2006-11 Plan will include strategies to expand upon previous school readiness activities: (1) moving from child transition plans to district level transition plans, (2) expanding the number of school based transition activities to schools with low preschool participation rates, and (3) providing early education programs to families with young children not participating in licensed early care and education programs.

The expected outcomes of the School Readiness Program are to increase school readiness for children through early education programs and the use of transition plans and School Readiness activities for school districts, and children.