Tuesday, March 16, 2010

State awards early learning grants to 13 school districts

DEL, Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction and Thrive by Five Washington awarded 13 mini-grants to help local school districts build stronger preschool-3rd grade partnerships. The total grant amount was $117,003.

Click here to see the full press release or read an excerpt below:

The grants must be used to focus on building early numeracy, developing literacy skills, or improving kindergarten transitions, three areas considered essential to ensuring school readiness. The funding can be used for teacher release time, materials, professional development, planning meetings and other activities that support enhanced preschool-third grade (P-3) partnerships.

“It just makes sense for parents, providers and educators to all work together as children approach kindergarten, one of the most important transition points in a child’s life,” DEL Director Bette Hyde said.

“Early learning includes those first years of elementary school, so we need to make sure early learning and K-12 communities are not just connecting, but partnering,” Superintendent of Public Instruction Randy Dorn said.

“Local communities often have the best ideas, but the most limited funds,” Thrive by Five Washington President and CEO Nina Auerbach said. “These mini-grants are seed money to move promising ideas forward.”

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It makes sense that parents, providers and educators get equal parity in grant awards if they are equally important at the table. Are parents and providers able to recieve grants for materials, professional development, planning meetings,or other activities such as lost time from work or child care subs to attend meetings that are usually druing school hours and working hours to support enhanced preschool-third grade (P-3) partnreships? Working parents and working providers have first hand experience with each and every child before they get to Kindergarten. I hope money is available to fund or support parent and provider involvement.

Anonymous said...

How can this happen with such a budget shortfall?

Either way, if we're going to blow the budget, we should do it on our kids. They never get the focus and then we end up paying down the road. Our school district fights achievement gaps and lately, we've talked about the harm that a lack of focus on early learning does for this problem.

Thanks for this blog! My daycare told me about it when I picked up my kids this afternoon. How exciting!

Anonymous said...

Government is too big.