Oklahoma Partnership for School Readiness Foundation

PROJECT PURPOSE

To begin to address the challenges exacerbated by Covid-19, this proposal includes a $100 million investment into front-line nonprofits and small businesses serving children and families. In accordance with the ARPA guidance, this is a two-pronged approach to meeting one time needs. These funds will target onetime costs in the following categories that allow the nonprofits to continue serving Oklahomans: 1. Capital 2. Training 3. Workforce development 4. Data capacity 5. Curriculum The program will include multiple pathways for grant applications including direct portal at the state level (with a straightforward minimal application that takes no longer than 1-2 hours to complete); resources for community level outreach efforts to build awareness about the opportunity and provide application assistance. OPSR will prioritize organizations with trusted relationships and ideas coming from direct experience with diverse families. As evidenced in the budget below and the attached letters of support, the administration of this program will be completely funded from private contributions and 100% of these public dollars will be utilized to strengthen the childcare infrastructure throughout the State of Oklahoma, allowing our economic recovery to continue to flourish.

EVIDENCE

The first 2,000 days of a child?s life, the amount of time that spans from birth to the first day of Kindergarten, are some of the most formative years of brain development, as 90% of the brain forms during that time. In the first 2,000 days, brain architecture is forming and creating a foundation for all future learning. The environment, experiences, and relationships a child has will lead to a strong or weak foundation. Further evidence to support this can be found in the attached annotated index of early childhood research.

POPULATION DESCRIPTION

This funding will benefit the entire state, including businesses via workforce infrastructure stability, via grants to qualifying nonprofits and small businesses serving families and children with funding allocation to be geographically disbursed according to population and weighted to target Qualified Census Tracts, pursuant to ARPA Guidance. Further, OPSR would weigh applications based on an approved metrics including but not limited to services / impact to families during COVID and recovery from COVID. Early childhood serving organizations would further benefit from data alignment. Oklahoma?s early childhood mixed-delivery system is fragmented, and its services are funded by multiple sources, which often means children and families are served by more than one program. Coordinating and aligning this complex system of whole-family, health and child learning is critical not only to ensure children?s needs are met but to maintain consistently high-quality standards and reduce system.

PERFORMANCE MEASURING

Project performance will be measured in part by investment in Qualified Census Tracts, families served by organizations by QCT, and childcare spaces maintained or expanded that adhere to industry best practices in sanitization, bolstered workforce training and credentialing, etc due to the investment. This information will be gathered through the application process and confirmed through the subrecipient monitoring process.

ONGOING INVESTMENT AMOUNT

$

ONGOING INVESTMENT DESCRIPTION

None

ONGOING INVESTMENT REQUIRED

One-time project will not need continued funding