City’s collaborative efforts under Mayor Gonzales commended as Council approves San Jose Early Care and Education Strategic Plan

San José --- San José’s innovative commitment to prepare young children for academic success when they enter kindergarten has won statewide recognition with the 2002 California Community Partnership Award.

In addition, the San José City Council today approved a long-term collaborative strategy to expand capacity and improve the quality of child care and early education in the community to further the city’s goal of learning readiness.

The award was presented to Smart Start San José by the Cities, Counties & Schools Partnership, the California Center for Civic Renewal, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. It recognizes the city’s success in combining the efforts of schools, parents, community-based organizations, businesses, and early childhood development professionals in order to help get San José’s youngest children ready to learn.

“This award recognizes what we have already accomplished for young San José children, and our new child care strategy shows what and how we will continue our success into the future,” said San José Mayor Ron Gonzales. 

“It will take a consistent community-wide commitment to make sure all our children can achieve, and I am proud of our city’s leadership to make this happen.”

Gonzales announced his commitment to new child care and early education priorities for San José earlier this year at his State of the City address.  The strategy adopted by the city council today will coordinate a broad range of city and community programs to increase child care capacity by 2000 spaces over the next four years while improving quality through more training for 1000 child care professionals.

The San José Redevelopment Agency has allocated $10 million for building or expanding child care capacity in redevelopment project areas in neighborhoods throughout the city.  In addition, the city has allocated more than $3 million to address growing child care and early education needs in downtown San José in partnership with existing child care centers.

Smart Start San José was one of Gonzales’ first early education initiatives when he became mayor in 1999 to improve learning readiness for young children.  Over the last three years, San José has established nine Smart Start centers in cooperation with school districts and community organizations, and eleven more are planned to be opened over the next two years.  Together the 20 Smart Start centers will prepare approximately 1200 children a year to be ready to learn when they enter kindergarten.

Through Smart Start San José, the city provides capital funding to build or expand centers that meet high standards for educational effectiveness.  School districts and community organizations operate the centers. In addition, Smart Start San José works with community child care providers to upgrade curriculum standards for kindergarten learning readiness.

Evaluation of the first Smart Start centers in San José have shown that more than 90% of the 220 children in Ready-For-Kindergarten pilot project successfully met early literacy and learning standards developed in consultation with preschool and kindergarten teachers in San José. 

Smart Start’s strategies also include establishing new early childhood development centers, expanding family childcare home businesses with program standards and increasing private sector involvement in these quality programs.   

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