MCF Grants $2 Million for Early Childhood Education Efforts

August 23, 2010

contact: Fred Silverman (415.464.2527 or via email)

To help ensure that young low-income students and students of color in Marin get off to a strong start in their early education, the Marin Community Foundation is making grants of nearly $2 million to support efforts in eight schools across the county.

“The Foundation realizes that the earliest years of education, starting in preschool and continuing through the third grade, set the stage for life-long success, both in school and beyond,” said MCF President Thomas Peters in announcing the grants. “Research shows that without a grasp of basic skills at this young age, students rarely catch up later on.”

The schools are located in the four districts where the Foundation is focusing support under its five-year, $35 million commitment to close the education achievement gap in Marin: San Rafael, Sausalito Marin City, Novato, and Shoreline, in West Marin. These are districts with proportionally higher numbers of low-income students and students of color, who often are struggling to keep up with their peers academically.

The awarding of these grants is the culmination of intensive planning efforts over the past several months at each of the schools that brought together teams of teachers, early childhood educators, representatives of after-school programs, administrators, and parents.

The teams are working to involve families in their children’s education, improve the quality of teaching, extend learning time, track the progress of individual students as they move from grade to grade, create school cultures with high expectations for all students, and set curriculum standards across grades.

“There is growing consensus across the country about the effectiveness of this kind of multi-grade, team approach to helping young students get started in school,” said Peters. “Plus, we’re learning more about the importance of early childhood preschool activities, including ones that parents undertake with their kids at home, so that young children enter school prepared to succeed.”

One application from an elementary school taking part in this effort reinforced the importance of greater coordination between schools and preschools: “It is obvious that the missing link in our service to our students and families is a strong, well-articulated connection to early learning and our preschool partners. We look forward to building that link.”

Through the Joanne & Peter Haas Jr. Fund, Novato resident Peter Haas, Jr. is providing funding of $236,000 to expand this coalition to a ninth school, Novato’s Lu Sutton Elementary School. Haas and his family are among the earliest donors at the Marin Community Foundation. He has a long-standing interest in education and supports a variety of philanthropic efforts in the county and beyond.

“The Foundation’s initiative provides an important vehicle for addressing our interest in education,” Haas stated. “It makes a lot of sense to partner with MCF through this collaborative funding, where we can join with the Foundation to expand the number of youngsters, families, and schools we can reach together.”
“We’re very grateful for Mr. Haas’ generous support,” said Peters. “His interest in education and his offer to help us reach even more children who need extra help have resulted in a wonderful partnership, one that will make a real difference in the lives of these young students.”

The schools receiving grants are:

San Rafael City Schools: Bahia Vista, San Pedro, and Venetia Valley
Novato Unified School District: Hamilton, Lynwood, and Lu Sutton
Shoreline Unified School District: Tomales Elementary, West Marin/Inverness
Sausalito Marin City School District: Bayside

In addition, the Marin County Office of Education is receiving funding under this cluster of grants to coordinate the school teams and provide student data to help the implementation efforts at the nine schools. “We have benefitted enormously from the expert advice of Superintendent Mary Jane Burke and her staff, and we are confident that their oversight will bring extra quality to this innovative collaboration,” Peters said.

“These grants,” he added, “will hopefully provide a model that can encourage other schools and districts to help students kick-start their education. When students succeed when they’re young, they can carry that with them for a lifetime.”