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In addition to providing quality early learning/child care, we provide an Early Childhood Education and Assistance program in each of our two sites. This program is the Washington State version of federal Head Start and serves children who are from age 3 to age 5 who are from low-income families.
We also provide child care for children whose parents are participating in the Behavioral Health Resources “Harvest” program, an outpatient substance abuse service. Additionally, we are a participating partner with Child Care Action Council and several other programs in the delivery of Keystone Crisis Nursery, where parents who need to attend a doctor’s appointment or job interview can drop off their child(ren).
We were asked to partner with Olympia School District in the Fall of 2008 in a two year grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This grant provides training in a nationally recognized curriculum called “Tools of the Mind” and creates linkages between early learning programs and the public schools. Please see the article from the Olympian on our site.
After a 3 year hiatus, OELC is participating in the “Career-Wage Ladder” project again. Teachers are rewarded through salary increases (subsidized by Washington State) for increased levels of training/education as well as for longevity with our program. Since two of the top three indicators of quality in early childhood education are staff training and education and staff longevity, we are really pleased to be able to affect quality this directly. Salaries in Early childhood are notoriously low, with fast food and pet groomers often making higher wages than early childhood teachers.
OELC is an active member of the Thurston County Early Childhood Coalition. The Coalition received a $25,000 grant from the Foundation for Early Learning (think Melinda Gates and Mona Locke) to implement data-driven strategic planning for Early Education in Thurston County. Two Saturday planning sessions happened to help figure out our local priorities, with the first on January 20, 2007 and the second in April.
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