RSSYakima early education gets $1.8M Gates boost
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YAKIMA, Wash. -- The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is awarding $1.8 million to early education programs throughout the region, helping them align curriculum and strengthen coordination between preschools and elementary schools.
Of this amount, the Yakima School District is receiving $840,000 while Educational Service District 105 is receiving two grants: one for $400,000 and another for $600,000. The latter, a two-year grant, was awarded in July.
"I believe it is significant because it will allow the school district to collaborate with our early learning partners in a different way, so we can ensure kids are ready for today's kindergarten and schools are ready for those kids," said Stacey Drake, early learning director for the Yakima School District. "In these economic times, we hadn't had the opportunity to do this before now."
With its grant, the Yakima School District will spend the next three years improving instruction in preschool through second-grade classrooms at four of the district's elementary schools and two EPIC Head Start sites.
Teachers in those classrooms will align standards, curriculum, assessments and professional development to help incoming kindergartners become and remain successful through the third grade and beyond.
To aid in this process, Head Start teachers will meet with kindergarten teachers each week, and the Yakima School District and ESD 105 will fund an early literacy instructor to work with preschoolers and early learning partners.
With its $400,000 grant, ESD 105 will spend the next two years replicating existing preschool- through third-grade alignment programs at the Yakima and Toppenish school districts, bringing them to the Cle Elum-Roslyn, Royal and Union Gap school districts.
The grant will help these latter districts establish and strengthen partnerships with their own community Head Start providers -- such as EPIC, the Washington State Migrant Council and Kittitas County Head Start/ECEAP.
The last, a $600,000 grant, is funding small capital projects in 50 licensed family child care facilities and child care centers in East Yakima. The improvements include the addition of cubbies and bookshelves to site expansions.
* Erin Snelgrove can be reached at 509-577-7684 or esnelgrove@yakimaherald.com
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