Dallas-area foundations commit funds to improve school readiness among low-income children

by PegNews wire

The Zero to Five Funders’ Collaborative, comprising 14 local foundations, has committed more than $1.3 million to fund the first year of a five-year project aimed at increasing the vocabulary of entering kindergartners in the Bachman Lake neighborhood. Starting school with a strong vocabulary is critical to a child’s future academic success.

The Collaborative funders include The Dallas Foundation, The Meadows Foundation, The M.R. and Evelyn Hudson Foundation, Carl B. and Florence E. King Foundation, The Rees-Jones Foundation, Communities Foundation of Texas, M.B. and Edna Zale Foundation, Harold Simmons Foundation, the Dallas Women’s Foundation, and two anonymous foundations. Additional members of the Collaborative include The Catholic Foundation, Dallas Social Venture Partners, and the Dallas Regional Chamber.

These organizations all view early childhood education as the funding area with the highest potential to transform communities. Recognizing the impact would be stronger by pooling resources, The Dallas Foundation and The Meadows Foundation organized a group of North Texas foundations to study the issue further. Now, after more than two years of research, the Collaborative has made its first round of grants to address early childhood education in our community.

In Dallas, the Collaborative identified children in the Bachman Lake neighborhood as among the most educationally underprepared and at-risk. The neighborhood is also the most toddler-rich zip code in Dallas, with nearly 1 in 10 residents under the age of three. Less than half the children in the Bachman Lake area enter kindergarten with an adequate level of school readiness.

The Collaborative selected four nonprofits to address language development in children ages 0 to 5 in the Bachman Lake neighborhood. Reaching families at school, church and/or home, the agencies will provide programs that teach parents practical ways to stimulate their children’s vocabulary development starting at birth, while instilling the importance of parent-child educational interaction and parent-school interaction.

Funding from the Collaborative will support several approaches:

AVANCE-Dallas, Inc. – The Baby University Project will offer classes for parents with practical ways to stimulate their children and their vocabulary development starting at birth. The courses are available for parents and children ages 0-4. The program also provides in-home mini-lessons taught by neighborhood volunteers.

Catholic Charities of Dallas – Based in the San Juan Diego Church, the Together We Learn program uses a holistic family method with simultaneous learning for parent and child. The two-fold approach allows parents to immerse themselves in English as a Second Language (ESL) courses, while trained teachers are working with their child.

The Dallas Concilio – The Lee and Seras curriculum is designed for parents of children in pre-kindergarten programs at four Bachman Lake neighborhood schools. The program focuses on parental engagement in a child’s language development process, both at home and school.

East Dallas Community Schools – Offered in apartment complexes within the Bachman Lake neighborhood, the Bachman B4Six Project provides Montessori-style classes for children and a parents-as-teachers curriculum for adults. The classes are designed to offer intensive language development for parents and children to increase the child’s school readiness.

For more information on the Zero to Five Funders’ Collaborative, contact Helen Holman at hholman1@tx.rr.com.

Source: The Dallas Foundation