DANVILLE-BOYLE EARLY CHILDHOOD ALLIANCE

News release

Through a competitive application process, Boyle County and Danville Independent school districts have each been selected as two of only 10 participating teams in the statewide 2019 School Readiness Summit organized by the Kentucky Governor’s Office of Early Childhood (GOEC). The School Readiness Summit will be held on April 29 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Center for Rural Development, 2292 S. Highway 27 in Somerset.

Boyle County Schools and Danville Independent Schools each have created 10-person teams that will focus on the following three areas in this one-day event:

• Collective action with community partners and parents is the key to preparing more children for school entry.

• Providing the tools and knowledge to assist schools to engage partners and the public in preparing children in the early years.

• Improving coordination between early care and education and community partners.

Members of these teams represent their respective school districts, Head Start, HANDS, Centre College, Campbellsville University, The Gladys Project, Danville Schools Education Foundation, Danville Montessori, Heart of Kentucky United Way, Ephraim McDowell Regional Medical Center, local early learning centers and the Danville-Boyle Early Childhood Alliance (DBECA).

The summit is funded through a grant provided by The Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Child Care and the Department of Education, Office of Health Learning, through the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). This year’s School Readiness Summit will focus on strengthening Kentucky’s comprehensive early care and education system, to support all young children and their caregivers.

Attendees will build on existing partnerships and relationships to improve the leveraging of resources across programs and agencies, build capacity of local leaders with regard to programs, communications, outreach to families, and engagement strategies, and to ensure children receive timely, effective, and high quality services that are responsive to their needs.

During the summit, teams will have time to work with a facilitator to create unique action plans based on district data to increase school readiness in their communities.