Kalamazoo County Ready 4s

Michigan Nightlight: Tell us briefly about your program in terms of its purpose and who it serves:
Kalamazoo County Ready 4s Executive Director Sandra Standish: Kalamazoo County Ready 4s is a pre-kindergarten initiative for four-year-olds. The kids come to our provider sites for their classes, three hours a day, five days a week for 33 weeks; we follow the academic calendar.
 
Our program was designed to offer a fully accessible, high-quality preschool experience to Kalamazoo County four-year-olds. But we also provide mentoring, ongoing professional training, and other coaching support to the administrators of the preschools, day care centers, and elementary schools that meet the high standards necessary to be Kalamazoo County Ready 4s providers.
 
Because our common goal is to reach as many kids as possible, we work together with Head Start of Kalamazoo County and The Great Start Readiness Program. Preschool is free, through both, for low-income families. Kalamazoo County Ready 4s is here to serve families of all income levels, on a sliding fee tuition scale, including the families who qualify for the other two programs. There are not always enough slots for everyone.

We typically tend to think that education begins with kindergarten. It does not. Education begins at birth.

 
What really differentiates this program?
The beauty of this program is that parents only need to fill out one application to apply for pre-kindergarten classes. Once we get them, we determine which of the three programs they qualify for. We recognize the important roles that the state and federally funded Head Start Program and the Great Start Readiness Program play more and more as we grow our program. 
 
In order to level the playing field so that every child enters kindergarten ready to learn, Kalamazoo County Ready 4s’ families receive tuition assistance based on family income on a generous sliding scale. That sets us apart, too.
 
For instance, it costs $4,500 a year for one child to attend our program, and let’s say that a family makes around $60,000 or $70,000 a year. Based on that, we might be able to pay up to 90 percent of the tuition for that family. 
 
The money comes from foundation grants, gifts from philanthropical organizations, corporations, community groups, individuals, and other sources. This private funding helps us provide community education, too - -we all want to make sure that every parent recognizes how important this early learning is. For some parents, preschool is not even on the radar. We typically tend to think that education begins with kindergarten. It does not. Education begins at birth.
 
What are the keys to success for your program?
A great deal of thoughtful planning went into the design of Kalamazoo County Ready 4s. The Kalamazoo County Committee for Early Childhood Education spent two full years in the development phase. I think this is one of the reasons why we were able to begin serving children and families so seamlessly as we designed this system.
 
Kalamazoo County ready 4s is not a curriculum – it’s a unique initiative. We work with teachers and administrators to help them reach the high standards [handed down from Michigan’s Great Start to Quality Rating and Improvement System] that it

...we're constantly working to increase the number of high-quality pre-kindergarten providers in this county's higher poverty neighborhoods so that every child has access to a solid pre-kindergarten program, regardless of family background or their parents' ability to pay.

takes to participate, and we provide the professional guidance they need to effectively implement these standards into their own programming. Every provider does it differently, but each meets the same guidelines, and that means that they are becoming more successful, too.
 
This year, we are working with several pre-kindergarten providers. They include Great Explorations Preschool and Nature’s Way Preschool in Portage; Montessori schools in Portage and in Kalamazoo; TLC Licensed Childcare & Preschool near Mattawan; and two new public providers, Climax-Scotts Elementary School and Milwood Elementary School in Kalamazoo.
 
We identified areas, through community networking, that had a need for pre-kindergarten educational assistance at first, but they are beginning to approach us now, which is becoming another wonderful key to our success
 
The strong support from our donors is a big key to our success. We are also lucky enough to have a group of highly motivated, dedicated and passionate board members.
 
What existing challenges remain with this program and how do you plan to overcome them?
There are 3,100 four-year-olds in Kalamazoo County. Our primary challenge is securing the funding we need to build a sustainable pre-kindergarten education system so that we can serve more and more of those 3,100 kids.  Other than tuition assistance, we spend the majority of our budget dollars hiring mentors and coaches so that we can all, together, have a positive impact on early childhood education, primarily in literacy, math, and social-emotional development. 
 
Building positive relationships and connecting with families is a challenge, too, but we are going to reach out to more families living in underserved communities and do our best to make sure that their children are enrolled in programs.
 
How does your program address issues of economic and educational equity?
Again, we’re constantly working to increase the number of high-quality pre-kindergarten providers in this county’s higher poverty neighborhoods so that every child has access to a solid pre-kindergarten program, regardless of family background or their parents’ ability to pay. The income-based tuition assistance is in place to remove the financial barrier that some families face when considering pre-kindergarten. 
 
What was the best lesson learned in the past year?
This isn’t a new realization, since I have worked on other countywide initiatives, but the importance of building the positive relationships that we have with stakeholders at all levels is critical for success. Head Start, the Great Start Readiness Program, and our local providers are all partners in the pre-kindergarten system that we are building for Kalamazoo County. All of those partners want to be represented, respected, and recognized.