School Readiness
School Readiness promotes strategies to provide children with appropriate and effective early services, supports, and high-quality early childcare and education. Children who are ready to succeed in school are more likely to become employed and financially stable adults. The Charlottesville office of the VA Department of Education reported for the 2015-2016 school year that economically disadvantaged kindergartners were 154% less likely to meet literacy benchmarks than children who are not economically disadvantaged.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Children's Data Consortium
The Children’s Data Consortium includes a longitudinal research project to match early childhood data with school data to determine what combination of early services provides the greatest level of school readiness. We are also excited to deploy an early literacy assessment in private early education centers such as Barrett and Piedmont YMCA, whose student enrollment is over 80% subsidized. Resulting outcomes will help teachers address emerging needs of individual students, improve classroom quality, and encourage activities at home with parents in support of their preschoolers.
Soho Book Program
Through a new partnership with The Soho Center, we distributed 10,000 children’s books with the assistance of UVA student-athletes. Our public preschool partners received over 3,000 books in the spring, to be delivered throughout the summer to children starting public preschool in the fall. The Soho Center partnership was renewed in February 2020, as the United Way helped fund RED!-Pre-K. This program delivered 7,256 new children’s books to the public preschool programs in Albemarle, Charlottesville, and Louisa to build classroom libraries and offer economically disadvantaged children new books to take home.
Early Education Task Force
The United Way, serving as our region’s Smart Beginnings of Greater Charlottesville, continues to coordinate the Charlottesville Albemarle Early Education Task Force. Local early education leadership and stakeholders convene to provide needed advocacy for both the community’s early education system and all children with identified risk factors, including poverty. The Task Force elevates the quality of early education by identifying, developing, and leveraging resources to meet the annual costs of providing high-quality early care and education, and increases public awareness of the importance of high-quality early education.
Early Education Task Force Members
Adiuvans Foundation
Albemarle County Dept. of Social Services
Albemarle County Public School System
Charlottesville Area Community Foundation
Charlottesville City Dept. of Social Services
Charlottesville City Public School System
Charlottesville Publishing Group
Child Health Partnership
Endicott Growth Equity Partners
Judy Smith
Monticello Area Community Action Agency
Ounce of Prevention
ReadyKids
United Way of Greater Charlottesville
UVA CASTL
Early Education Task Force Members
Adiuvans Foundation
Albemarle County Dept. of Social Services
Albemarle County Public School System
Charlottesville Area Community Foundation
Charlottesville City Dept. of Social Services
Charlottesville City Public School System
Charlottesville Publishing Group
Child Health Partnership
Endicott Growth Equity Partners
Judy Smith
Monticello Area Community Action Agency
Ounce of Prevention
ReadyKids
United Way of Greater Charlottesville
UVA CASTL
Meet Aleyda, one of our Early Learner Scholarship recipients, and learn more about her journey from Bolivia to becoming a nurse here in Charlottesville.
PreSchool Development Grant
Funded jointly by the VA Department of Education and the Virginia Early Childhood Foundation via a Federal Preschool Development Grant, the project includes both the City and County school systems, United Way, ReadyKids, MACAA Head Start, and a number of private early education providers. The project is designed to gather data about the local early education landscape as well as implement the CLASS method of measuring teacher/child interactions in public and private settings.
Early Ed Symposium
The Symposium is conducted annually to provide high-quality professional development to public and private early education teachers, administrators and classroom assistants. It also serves as a celebration to recognize the service of early childhood educators.
Mixed Delivery
The Mixed Delivery Project works with public and private partners, maximizing state preschool funding, while also providing funds for high-quality preschool in private settings with after-care so parents may remain employed. Coaching and mentoring provided for teachers increases quality in the classrooms.
Multiply Your Impact
For every $1 given to the United Way’s School Readiness programs, $14 is returned to the community.