San Jose, CA ----  The Packard Foundation will grant $2 million over the next three years to San Jose to support the city’s expansion of its San Jose Smart Start Centers at four new sites, and 75 Smart Start Family Child Care Homes Mayor Gonzales announced today.

In addition, Gonzales is recommending a $600,000 plan to begin implementation of the city’s new youth services strategy, A Blueprint for Bridging the Digital Divide, to strengthen the City’s commitment to education

“We know the key to school success starts with getting our youngest children ready to learn, and it requires ongoing support from the entire community throughout their school careers” said the mayor. 

“The generous grant from the Packard Foundation will help us build more San Jose Smart Start Child Care programs with community partners to accomplish this goal for more children as they begin school, and our blueprint charts how we will continue our commitment as they get older.”

The Packard grant also helps to support coordination of critical support services to families participating in the program and program evaluation to help San Jose monitor and improve the effectiveness of its Smart Start programs. Moreover, the Packard grant complements the City and its partners’ work of improving the professional development of 390 early childhood providers so that our preschoolers receive the highest quality early care and education.

“The leadership of the Mayor and the Ready for Kindergarten Partners in enacting systems-wide reform to improve early care and education programs throughout the City is bold and enlightened,” said Carla Dartis of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

“We are pleased to support this effort and call upon other local jurisdictions to take up this charge in their respective communities.”

The San Jose Youth Commission developed the Blueprint for Bridging the Digital Divide in response to the Mayor’s challenge in his State of the City in February 2001. It will serve as a framework for the City’s youth services and educational support and identifies specific outcomes for city and community programs.

“The Blueprint will guide our continuing efforts to better serve the young people of San Jose and help prepare them to be productive members of our community in the 21^st century,” said Gonzales.  “It builds on an excellent foundation of educational and youth programs we have developed to improve the opportunities for young people succeed in life.”

The Youth Commission consists of eleven high school students who advise the City of San Jose on a broad range of youth services, issues, and priorities. The City Council allocated $600,000 last June to implement the Blueprint, which recommends support for model elementary school education innovations, on-line test preparation for high school students, training for childcare quality enhancement, and youth leadership development.

The Blueprint will be considered the San Jose City Council Education, Neighborhoods, Youth & Seniors Committee at 1:30 p.m. on December 17, and by the full Council in January.

Over the last three years Mayor Gonzales has launched several initiatives to help support quality public education in San Jose.  These include the San Jose teacher homebuyer program that has helped more than 160 teachers with down payment loans for their first homes; the San Jose future teacher scholarships to encourage local college students to become teachers; and expansion of homework centers throughout San Jose so that every child can have a safe and quiet place to study.

San Jose Smart Start Program provides a quality, state-licensed, yearly childhood development program for 1,200 pre-school children so that they can enter kindergarten ready to learn.  In 1999, Mayor Gonzales called for the opening ten Smart Start Centers in San Jose by 2005 in partnership with school districts and community-based organizations such as the Packard Foundation.

This goal was doubled in 2001 to open 20 centers and 124 family child care homes that can serve more than 1,200 young children by 2005.  San Jose has now opened five Smart Start centers, and three more are scheduled to be open by June 2002.

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Summary of Blueprint for Closing Digital Divide funding recommendations:

Mayor Gonzales has endorsed the recommendations of the San Jose Youth Commission that $600,000 already budgeted for implementing the Blueprint be allocated as follows:

·        Create the “School Community Innovation and Cooperation Grant Program”

A new competitive grant program will provide elementary school communities with additional resources to effectively tackle the challenges they face in educating their children.  This grant program will be aimed at elementary schools that face significant challenges to student achievement.

·        Matching grants for on-line test preparation

On-line test preparation has proven to be one of the most cost-effective ways to prepare students for college entrance and high school graduation exams. To help increase the number of young people who qualify for admission to college, the City would provide matching grants to school districts that want to develop pilot programs for using on-line test preparation.

·        Funding for the “Childcare Business Creation Program”

The city has trained 60 childcare providers over the last three years in an effort to increase the quality of childcare available in San Jose.  To meet the growing number of requests from the Spanish-speaking community, the city would add training in Spanish to help improve access to quality childcare for a wider portion of the community.

·        Youth leadership development