Orange County Preschool Plan (Executive Summary)

From February to October, 2007, over 200 individuals, including educators, public agency representatives, child care providers, parents, and other early childhood education stakeholders, met to develop a seven-year comprehensive plan for preschool education in Orange County. The plan needed to build upon prior work in the county and throughout the state. The plan needed to be action-oriented and prescriptive, laying out two-, five-, and seven-year goals with indicators of achievement to monitor the county’s progress. In addition, the plan needed to bear the unique signature of Orange County while being responsive to the state and local fiscal and political climate.

The Orange County Preschool Plan addresses the above criteria and more. The county has a blueprint for the next seven years that will improve the overall level of quality in preschool programs and will also increase access to high-quality preschool experiences for the children who have limited prospects of access today.

Where some counties choose to centralize functional responsibility for preschool in one agency, Orange County will follow the path of a voluntary and sustained collaboration among different agencies, each fulfilling its respective role for the overall effort. Where some counties have few assets to build upon as they go forward, Orange County has tremendous assets that can be leveraged to stay ahead of the curve.

The Collaborative is committed to ensuring that the quest for a quality education for every child, beginning with preschool, starts in 2008. Thus, through this planning process, Orange County developed its local signature: Promoting preschool quality everywhere, while targeting new services in the communities where they are needed most.

The Orange County plan is comprehensive in scope, realistic with regard to expected accomplishments, and pragmatic in timing the roll-out of each component of the plan.

This is the executive summary of the Orange County Preschool Plan.

For further information, visit http://ocpreschoolplan.ocde.us/home.htm.