Universal Preschool Initiative - Parent Survey Findings Report [CPPT, Section 6f]

As a Strategic Partner to First 5 LA, the Children’s Planning Council (CPC), Service Planning Area (SPA) and American Indian Children’s (AIC) Councils sponsored an effort to ensure that the voices of parents are including in the planning of the UPK initiative. Specifically, the intent of this effort was to ensure that the UPK system reflects the interests, concerns and values of Los Angeles County parents on behalf of their very young children.

CPC contracted with Lodestar Management/Research, Inc. (Lodestar) to assist them in developing an approach and collecting information about community attitudes and beliefs. The need for this research was immediate, requiring efficient data collection. Combined with the desire to engage community members, the procedure that was adopted relied on community volunteers and outreach workers to collect data about the attitudes and opinions of parents across the county. Due to constraints on time and resources, recruited surveyors were given brief but intense training and only minimal field supervision. Lack of time and resources also meant that random sampling and concerted efforts to ensure adequate response were not possible. Despite these limitations, the nine SPA/AIC Councils collected perspectives across all communities in LA County. While the sample is not scientific (randomly selected) it is large (n =3,201) and diverse on a number of factors including race/ethnicity, language, income, and familiarity with child care/preschool.

This document is part of the California Preschool Planning Toolkit.