healthy child development

updates

Boston School Readiness Initiative (continued)

This $1 million effort is funded by a grant from an anonymous donor of $633,000, which has been matched by more than $360,000 in additional support and in-kind contributions from 12 partners. The grant, which will be managed by UWMB and the Mayor’s Office, will fund the launch of a 30-person Mayor’s School Readiness Action Planning Team (APT) that will develop a five-year sustainable plan for preventing the achievement gap. Funds will also be used to develop and pilot a new comprehensive Boston Public Schools Kindergarten Assessment to determine what percentage of children in Boston are ready to enter school and track the city’s progress over time. “This initiative represents the kind of public/private partnership that is essential to helping us realize our ambitious vision for children and families,” said Milton J. Little, Jr., president and chief executive officer of United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley. “Under the Mayor’s leadership, many diverse groups in the city will come together to develop shared goals for young children and determine which programs are the most effective and should be expanded, and what new opportunities are needed for children and their parents. We’re proud to stand with the Mayor to level the playing field among young children, narrow or even eradicate the achievement gap for the next generation, and ensure all children have access to opportunities that promote educational success.”

Some of the other components of the initiative include:

• A new 0-5 Data and Research Team (DART) to review data about young children and their families across all fields to inform the work of the School Readiness Action Planning Team and build a permanent base for data sharing
• Consensus building across the early care and education (ECE) community about the definition of school-readiness and identification of appropriate assessment tools to determine readiness of children in ECE before they enter school
• The development and dissemination of culturally appropriate tools to communicate child development information to parents, early childhood providers and health providers, including information on developmental milestones every six months from birth through age five
• A “Talk Campaign” conducted by ReadBoston to bridge the severe vocabulary gap faced by low-income children entering school
• A “Parents Are a Child’s First Teacher” campaign conducted by Countdown to Kindergarten to promote the important role caregivers have in nurturing young children’s learning and development
• Public engagement about the importance of children’s early years