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“What the
best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must the community want
for all its children.” -- John Dewey
Early Achievers saturation
Early
Achievers was only launched just over a year ago, but already the reach of this
system-wide initiative has been phenomenal.
Thanks to the hard work and dedication of the Child Care Aware teams around the state, and the enthusiasm
and commitment to children of Washington’s early learning providers, more than 1,700
participants have now enrolled in Early Achievers, serving more than 53,000
children! (See performance tracker
below.)
One of the
most exciting parts of the strong enrollment data is that Early Achievers is
reaching nearly every county in the state. This map shows participation by county as of August 31, 2013.
 5595 Task Force and Early Learning
Integration
The
Washington State Legislature is taking a close look at how to make sure that
all of Washington’s early learning programs are designed to support strong
outcomes for children, are managed efficiently, and are working together to
create a seamless system for families. The Child Care Improvements for the
Future Task Force created in Senate Bill 5595 has been meeting to develop
recommendations to the Legislature about the expansion of early learning programs
that include a mixed delivery system to integrate community-based early
learning programs, including family child care and child care centers, schools,
and educational services districts.
Co-chaired
by Rep. Maureen Walsh, R- Walla Walla, and Sen. Andy Billig, D-Spokane, the task
force is taking a creative look at ways to make sure that Washington’s limited
early learning resources are doing as much as they can for children and
families. This includes exploring new
finance models that blend and maximize existing resources, identifying new
revenue and other funding sources, and thinking about incentives that promote
and sustain high-quality programs.
At the task
force’s Oct. 23 meeting, DEL staff presented an overview of Early Achievers as
a system-wide quality improvement framework to help ensure consistent quality
across early learning settings, including child care, Early Childhood
Education and Assistance Program (ECEAP) and Head Start. The task force
explored options for ensuring sufficient support and incentives to help ensure
early learning programs join Early Achievers and continue improving quality.
View
materials from the Oct. 23 meeting.
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