EDUCare

Overview of EDUCare

Educare New Orleans is a research-based program that prepares at-risk children for school; a specially-designed place that nurtures early learning and sends a bold message about the value of investing in the first five years; an innovative partnership between the public and private sectors to create a more efficient, more effective early learning program; and a compelling platform to drive change among policymakers, business leaders and early childhood providers by demonstrating what quality early learning looks like.

Educare directors will coordinate with previous schools for transfers between Johnson City schools to assure there is NO EDUCARE TUITION DEBT at the previous school before enrolling a student into the Educare Program.  If debt does exist, enrollment will be denied until the debt has been paid to the previous school.  If application/registration fees are paid at one Educare site, these fees will not be required to be repaid at the transfer site within the same school year. 

Educare invests in both the children and the families to provide real opportunities for parents to develop parenting, job and life skills in order to become role models for their children.  By having this model school as an example of how public and private dollars can be leveraged to maximize results for children and families at-risk, policy makers and business leaders will have an opportunity to see the real payoffs of investing in quality early care and education.

Educare alone may stifle individual genius and agency, while educere works to preserve them – to draw them out – but an entirely alternative approach, not implied by the etymology, is required to achieve the implied promise of autonomy made by the phrase, “an education.” Educare and educere may neatly form the basis for the mainstream debate about education – bureaucrats wielding standardized tests and longer school days vs.

Educare is a school that is specially designed with young children in mind and is open to the community as a model of high quality and a beacon of hope for families; a program designed to build strong connections between home and school based on current early childhood research with the goal of changing the life trajectory of high need, at-risk children and families; and an early childhood education policy in practice.

Educare Springfield, located on land donated by Springfield College and adjacent to Elias Brookings School, is the 24th in the network of full-day, year-round schools in a public and private partnership founded 25 years ago by Susan Buffett, daughter of billionaire philanthropist Warren Buffett, to serve at-risk children from birth to 5 years old in diverse communities.

EduCare’s dynamic approach taps into students’ intrinsic curiosity to pursue deeper learning and develop meaningful connections with adults and the larger global community.EduCare’s After School Programs are currently offered at 36 Los Angeles middle and high schools, providing positive alternatives to dropping out and gang involvement.

EduCare for Education® is a cost-effective e-learning service providing a broad range of safeguarding and duty of care training for every member of staff in an educational setting to meeting compliance training needs and provide evidence for inspection.

Educare funding is provided by the Missouri Department of Social Services, Children's Division, Early Childhood Section.The Mid-America Regional Council administors the Educare program in Cass, Clay, Jackson, Platte and Ray counties.  

Educare DC is seeking a food service management company to deliver 728 meals/day (in bulk – unless otherwise requested) to two locations participating in the Child Adult Care Food Program (CACFP)  Read full RFP.

Network

The Educare of Los Angeles at Long Beach is a collaborative partnership between the Long Beach Unified School District, Early Head Start/Head Start, Child Development Centers State-Preschool, First Five California, the Educare Learning Network, and various private sector donors.  The mission of Educare is to promote school readiness, reduce the achievement gap and break the cycle of poverty by enhancing the social and cognitive development of children ages 0 to 5 years through the provision of evidence-based education, health, nutritional, social, and other services to enrolled children and their families.

Support

Educare programs contribute to the field by being effective spokespeople for the need to strengthen policies and systems to support the use of evidence-based early learning practices on the ground.The Educare Network of schools is redefining the essential competencies for early childhood leaders in the 21st century by focusing not only on practice, but also on understanding and articulating the intersection between practice, policy and research as a way to leverage change in the early childhood field. The Educare of Los Angeles at Long Beach is much more than another early learning center.

Interested in joining the Educare Learning Network?

Explore our career opportunities.

Do you think there are aspects of Educare DC’s model that make it more challenging, or less challenging, than what other early learning centers are facing during the crisis?

[Pyper Davis] The fact that Educare is not reliant on a single funding stream has also helped us during this challenging time.And our public funders all provided guidance to help us make the decision to close.For example, the Office of Head Start recommended that programs follow their local public schools in deciding about closing, and committed that they would continue to fund programs based on enrollment and not on attendance.In addition, the District continued to fund state funded pre-K programs, like Educare, and to fund child care subsidy (through Child Care & Development Block Grants allocations).These public funding streams — together with generous private funders — make up Educare’s primary funding sources, and they are fortunately keeping us afloat and allowing us to pay staff salaries and other costs during this crisis.

What is Educare?

Educare Schools provide full-day, full-year, high-quality early education and family support to 150-200 of their community's children, from prenatal to 5 years, who are at risk of school failure.

What are the organization’s key strategies for making this happen?

Our programs support students, teachers and parents to create school environments that meet the social and emotional development needs of students—including feelings of belonging, safety, and community—in order to provide ideal conditions for success across the domains of young people’s lives.EduCare’s heart-centered approach and expertise in social-emotional learning sets us apart.The understanding, kindness, generosity, and love that our staff and volunteers bring to schools makes us unique.EduCare builds a “culture of caring” that sustains and infuses a school’s environment.Though many call it a new field in education, EduCare has been, since 1990, a pioneer in Social-Emotional Learning (SEL).The increasing gap in academic outcomes among low-income and minority youth has resulted in more recognition at every level (local, state and federal) of the need for schools to meet students’ social and emotional development needs.This has opened the door for a greater focus on “soft” skills (self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision making) that are essential to SEL and at the heart of EduCare’s youth development pedagogy.Our educational service model provide key learning skills that simply are not addressed in the standard curriculum of most public, charter, and private schools.EduCare’s flagship ACE (Achievement and Commitment to Excellence) Program produces powerful and lasting results in a short period of time.What makes EduCare and our ACE Program so unique is the mindset we develop in students, educators and parents that supports and nurtures personal development, and a positive culture shift that ultimately leads to student success.The opportunities to create immense positive impact through the ACE initiative are real and momentous — more youth graduating from high school, enrolling and graduating from colleges, and moving on to lead successful, fulfilling lives….serving and uplifting themselves, their families, communities and our world.

How do you think young children and early childhood education will be affected by this pandemic?

[Jamal Berry] For our youngest learners, a break in routine and continuity of care impacts their learning and development.We can try to provide these things through distance learning, but we know it’s not the same.It will take time to rebuild the relationships and the routines that helped our children develop and thrive.

How do you monitor safeguarding concerns?

Our software Safeguard my School, powered by EduKey, makes it easy for school staff to report their safeguarding concerns, and for your school to ensure compliance with current legislation and provide evidence for inspections.

What have they accomplished so far and what’s next?

EduCare annually serves over 30,000 unduplicated students.Our comprehensive After School Programs at 18 high schools and 1 middle school serves over 2,500 students each school day.Additionally, each year over 5,000 youth participate in our 3-day ACE Student Success Program.We serve over 600 parents and caregivers through our Parent Workshops.Over 700 teachers, instructors and youth development professionals participate in our Professional Development activities each year.In 2008, EduCare, in partnership with LAUSD and two community-based organizations (arc and IMpact People), developed the Take Action Leadership Campaign (TAC).TAC builds the skills and confidence high school students need for success after high school.In 2010, it was expanded to middle schools to create MTAC, enabling us to reach an additional 3,000 LAUSD middle school students each year.Through the Language in Action Program (LAP) conducted with the same partners, EduCare annually reaches over 400 LAUSD English Language Learning (EL) students with specialized language acquisition services.Our signature ACE 3-Day Student Success Program has demonstrated significant results: * A study of the ACE 3-DAy Program with over 500 at-risk youth in six Philadelphia School District high schools showed a 15% higher daily attendance rate, a 25% higher rate of passing four or more major subjects, and a 39% reduction in the dropout rate of participants.* A UCLA study in 2005-06 showed teachers saw positive changes in students’ self-respect (96%) and self-esteem (92%).Students were more cooperative (96%), kind/caring (92%) and had improved empathy, sensitivity and friendship skills (93%).It also showed that parents saw positive changes in their children’s self-esteem (92%), and involvement at home (93%).* A 2016 ERC evaluation shows that compared to non-participants, ACE participants were more likely to meet or exceed English- Language Arts (13%) and Math (19.3%) standards; and 8.7% were more likely to meet a 96% regular school attendance rate.We have embarked on our ACE Initiative.By 2020, EduCare will have established the initiative at 5 Los Angeles Schools creating a school culture designed for increased positive student outcomes.New and enhanced curriculum will provide students, parents, and educators with the support, programming and resources to create school and home environments defined by caring, connectivity, and collaboration.Multiple expanded learning platforms and unique approaches to service delivery (i.e.webinars on classroom strategies for educators, on-line learning environments and support groups, field-based activities, and blended learning) will leverage technology and utilize digital and social media.The ACE Initiative uses EduCare’s heart-centered approach and proven SEL practices to create an evidence-based model that can be shared, replicated and enhanced by other schools, school districts and youth service organizations.

What is the organization aiming to accomplish?

EduCare’s vision is to make a difference in the lives of children and teens…to provide exemplary transformational education and after school programs for youth and those who support them.Our goal is to provide youth with the tools for leading successful, fulfilling, and contributing lives; for them to learn to communicating responsibly, confidently and effectively; and for them to learn how to shift from positions of “againstness” to tolerance, from tolerance to understanding, and from understanding to compassion for themselves and others.If there has ever been a time in our global history when the youth needed to be valued and supported in a heart-centered way, it is now.There is a historically unprecedented reaching out from our youth for greater guidance, purpose, and meaning in life.They are a risk to negative influences and their future quality of life can be greatly limited.There are far too few programs that are meeting this important call to action.Our programs provide low-income at-risk youth and the adults that educate and care for them with the tools, knowledge and skills to address the challenges in their lives.By developing these essential life skills and resiliency techniques, success in the classroom is attainable.EduCare’s whole-child approach and youth empowerment model provides students and adults with the tools and confidence to reach their full potential.Our goal is to transform school cultures and environment by:* developing student’s social and emotional skills that assist them to manage their emotions, build positive relationships, and effectively navigate social environments, enabling them to achieve their academic and personal goals.* engaging and empowering parents to more effectively support their child’s education.* guiding educators to inspire and empower students to become responsible citizens, compassionate leaders who live their dreams.* empowering administrators with the tools and resources to create caring school cultures that support student achievement, engage parents, and support teacher development.The opportunities to create positive impact through our youth development strategy are real and momentous.Consider the following- Our country’s underserved urban young people graduating from high school, enrolling and graduating from college, and then moving on to lead successful and fulfilling lives…serving and uplifting themselves, their families, their communities and our world.What an amazing opportunity! The more young people we can reach with our work, the more we can support the youth of this world in becoming the conscious leaders of tomorrow.

If you could tell policymakers how to support early learning organizations during and after this crisis, what would you say?

[Pyper Davis] One of the interesting questions that has come out of this COVID-19 crisis is: Does ECE fall under the “education” category or under the “essential services/infrastructure” category? Should we automatically close ECE programs when public schools close, because if it isn’t safe for 5-year-olds or 10-year-olds, it probably isn’t safe for 2-year-olds? Or do we think of ECE as some sort of essential infrastructure, like the Metro trains and buses that need to run to transport people? Or is there some other category that we have just failed to clearly define, which is why we are struggling about what the “rules” are during this crisis? These are important questions to consider as we ponder what is important and as we reflect on our national values.

Looking ahead, how do you envision Educare DC operating after the crisis? What will you do differently?

[Jamal Berry] Like everyone around the country, this is the first time we have ever needed to respond to a crisis of this magnitude.We continue to learn throughout this experience.We are focused on part of our model — continuous program improvement.So, moving forward, we will improve the emergency plans that we have developed and think about remote operations more fully.Childcare already has a lot of guidance related to health and safety, and we will have strengthened those routines to protect our children, family, and staff.Data collected through our family needs screener has shown that 20% of our families have experienced a job loss due to the crisis.While we already provide a number of supports and resources to our families, we will likely need to increase and shift the types of resources based on the needs of our families.We will need to be innovative as we return to our new normal.

What are the organization’s capabilities for doing this?

Before SEL had a name and terms like ‘grit’ and ‘growth mindset’ became popular in education reform circles, EduCare’s founders, Stu and Candace Semigran, recognized that the social and emotional development needs of many of our youth needed to be met before effective teaching and learning could take place.They co-founded EduCare, and were pioneers of what would now be considered a model SEL program — the ACE Program.EduCare president, Stu Semigran, has over forty years of experience as an educator, developing and facilitating training programs for thousands of youth and adults in educational settings worldwide.Significant increases in promotional rates, attendance and grades have been noted in schools nationwide because of his work.He holds a Bachelor’s in Psychology, a California Lifetime Teaching Credential and Master degrees in Theology and Psychology.Stu has developed education curriculum, including “Making the Best of Me: A Handbook for Student Excellence and Self-Esteem” used in schools worldwide.Stu was instrumental in implementing school reform at over seventy schools and children’s centers through the Annenberg Project LEARN Reform.He serves on the California After School Network’s Leadership Team.In 2012, he received the Humanitarian Award in education and serving youth from the David Chow Humanitarian Award Foundation.Our YOUTH DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS focus on our expertise in providing social-emotional skills trainings that are foundational for a growth mindset, student resiliency, and motivation that lead to success.Our ACE PROGRAM empowers youth to achieve excellence by strengthening the individual student and their adult support network.Our AFTER SCHOOL PROGRAMS offer tutoring, academic assistance, music and arts enrichment, mentoring, STEM, physical/recreational activities, and leadership development on school campuses within our framework of youth empowerment and social-emotional learning.In November 2010, EduCare and its partners were awarded with the “Innovation in High School After School Collaboration and Partnerships” award by the California Afterschool Network for TAC.In 2012, our After School Programs were recognized as: A Best Practice/Dropout Prevention by Afterschool Alliance; and A Best Practice in Summer Programs for the ACE Program, by Learning in Afterschool Group.Our PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT enables educators to replicate our successful youth development strategies.We emphasized Social Emotional Learning (SEL) , English Language Development, and Linked Learning.Our tools, techniques and resources assist educators to teach youth an additional 3 R’s — Respect, Resiliency and Responsibility, and develop nurturing learning environments.Our PARENT AND FAMILY SKILLS DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOPS empower parents with tools and strategies for skillfully parenting with greater empathy, confidence and success.

When the pandemic first hit, what were some of Educare’s biggest challenges or dilemmas?

[Pyper Davis] The first thing in my mind was the safety of families and staff.As a Head Start program, Educare is designed to serve the most vulnerable children and their families, providing not only high-quality early learning, but a suite of wraparound services to children and their families.The idea they would not have the daily support (such as health, nutrition, parent support related to housing, food insecurity, education, etc.) of coming to Educare was a big concern for all of us.

History of EDUCare

In 2000, Start Early (formerly known as the Ounce) developed the first Educare school to serve the children and families rebuilding their community after the demolition of the Robert Taylor Homes, one of the largest public housing developments in Chicago.

In 2020, 29 children received supportive care at EduCare.