To be successful in launching a Ready Schools Initiative, it takes a team approach that includes both schools and the larger community. It takes careful planning, leadership, and an on-going commitment to building and sustaining partnerships to develop both a School-Based Team and a Community-District Team that support the overall school district initiative. To meet your goals, you must take a broad-based and multi-layered approach that involves diverse representation from across your school(s) and community.
Ready Schools Implementation Process:
- Collaborative Team Development
- Needs Assessment
- Action Planning
- Implementation
- Evaluation
View a chart showing the Ready Schools Process.
Download the Getting Started section of the Ready Schools Toolkit, Part 1.
Download a list of Resources for Getting Started.
Selected Getting Started Resources:
WEBSITES
FirstSchool: Uniting the Best of Early Childhood, Elementary, and Special Education: http://firstschool.fpg.unc.edu
FirstSchool is a PreK-3rd grade initiative to promote public school efforts to become more responsive to the needs of an increasingly younger, more diverse population of children entering school. Our framework for school improvement addresses schools’ ongoing struggles to produce equitable outcomes for African American, Latino, and low-income students, the increased presence of pre-kindergartens within public schools, and the challenge of sustaining high instructional quality in every early childhood and elementary classroom.
Foundation for Child Development: PreK-3rd Education:http://fcd-us.org/our-work/prek-3rd-education
Covers the “what” and “why” of PreK-3rd education as well as challenges, financing, implementation, leadership, and teacher professional development. Includes policy briefs other key resources
New America Foundation: Early Education Initiative: http://earlyed.newamerica.net/
The Early Education Initiative seeks to promote a high-quality and continuous system of early care and education for all children, birth to age 8. Much of the focus is on PreK-3rd grade. This website includes articles and op-eds, a blog, policy papers, transcripts and resources, current news, a discussion forum, and a listing of early ed events.
P-3 Early Learning and the Early Grades: http://www.ecs.org/ecsmain.asp?page=/html/issueEL_new.html
An in-depth issue site by the Education Commission of the States (ECS) dedicated to topics relating to the learning and development of children from birth to age 8. This rich site includes numerous research reports and readings, overviews of what states are doing, and links to other relevant websites.
Pre-K Now: http://www.preknow.org/index.cfm
Pre-K Now is a public education and advocacy campaign that advances high-quality, voluntary pre-kindergarten for all three and four year olds. This website features a resource center full of information including an advocacy toolkit, research, state profiles, history and facts of Pre-K, and many other resources (many available in Spanish).
PreK-3rd Data Resource Center: http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/PREK3RD/publications_resources.jsp
This online resource center is designed to expand the knowledge base and provide tools for the access and handling of PreK-3rd grade longitudinal data. The Publications and Resources section contains documents covering topics such as effective programs, teacher education and quality, investment, and assessment and accountability.