San Luis Obispo

Introduction

San Luis Obispo County is located along the Pacific Ocean in the Central Coast, between Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area. The state government’s population bureau lists a January 1, 2006 estimate of 257,005. The county seat is San Luis Obispo, with about 45,000 residents. California Polytechnic State University and Hearst Castle are located in San Luis Obispo County. San Luis Obispo County is the third largest producer of wine in California, surpassed only by Sonoma and Napa Counties.

San Luis Obispo County is currently in the implementation phase of Early Learning For All (ELFA).  ELFA represents a commitment among educators, families, and policy makers to build towards a locally designed, universally accessible early education system that integrates a continuum of learning experiences for young children. Currently about 85 percent of parents in SLO County send their children to an early learning program before kindergarten. However, only about 50 percent of these children attend a high-quality preschool.  ELFA efforts in San Luis Obispo County County aim to bring universal access to high-quality early learning opportunities.

In 2006 a regional collaborative of education and community leaders came together to form the San Luis Obispo County P-16 council.  This group charged itself with a mission to establish priorities, commit resources, and advocate across institutional boundaries for a coordinated approach to improve student achievement and eliminate the achievement gap in San Luis Obispo County. The group defined its first priority as high-quality and access to Early Childhood Education and established the ECE Task Force.  This task force brought together representatives of the early childhood
community, elementary education, special needs providers, parents, higher education institutions, funders, and other community organizations, each with a specialized area of expertise. The result of this task force was the creation of the ELFA plan, which aims to provide high quality preschool to the 4,500 three and four year old children in the county within the next five years. Quality will be improved in the measure of improving the preschool environment, materials, developmentally appropriate curriculum, a low child-to-adult ratio, teacher education and salary.  The plan is a mixed delivery system of licensed providers from the public and private sector including full and part day programs, center-based, faith-based and family child care programs.

ELFA aims to offer a comprehensive plan that builds upon the existing early care, education and family resource infrastructure, reinforces the important transitional link between preschool and kindergarten/elementary school, articulates shared ideals on best practice models to strive for, and offers realistic actions, achievable in one year increments.  ELFA is currently in its second year of implementation and has been aided by the San Luis Obispo Community Foundation through a grant from the Orfalea Family Foundation.  Currently with funds from the State and
First 5 of San Luis Obispo County, there are two preschool - School Readiness programs serving Oceano Elementary School and Georgia Brown Elementary School in Paso Robles. These programs are run through the
San Luis Obispo County Office of Education (SLOCOE) with the support of First 5 San Luis Obispo County.  SLOCOE has expanded on these preschool models over the past six years.  The bench mark goals of these programs has been to provide a high quality preschool experience for children while aiding students and parents in the transition from preschool to kindergarten, and eventual system-wide implementation.  ELFA also empowers San Luis Obispo County to be poised for action when more funding becomes available.

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