Oklahoma City Public Schools (OKCPS)

PROJECT PURPOSE

An investment in high-quality child care leads to further economic development, however, access to child care is an on-going concern throughout our community, many of our families, including our OKCPS staff, struggle to find access to high-quality child care facilities. OKCPS began its own endeavor in providing child care to our parenting students who are working to complete high school graduation then moving to providing child care opportunities for our OKCPS staff. This allowed us to use child care as a stabilizing structure for economic development and investment in the workforce. Due to the size of the school district and the substantial need for high-quality child care services, OKCPS is in an unique position to expand access of child care to our staff, parenting students, as well as throughout the community where child care deserts exist. This project proposes the development of six childcare facilities associated with OKCPS and in partnership with other child care & EHS organizations. An investment in child care is an investment in our families and communities. Further it provides the young children in our community access to early learning experiences during the most pivotal years to their development.

EVIDENCE

Parents have had to make the decision to leave the workforce to care for their children and while many people are returning to work, 25% are struggling to find child care for their children. Few families qualify for subsidy payments with families spending 14% - 35% of their income on child care. Even when subsidies can be applied, only 54% of child care programs accept it. This is due to the fact that subsidy is often not enough to financially support the child care costs. Providing child care with partnership through OKCPS would allow for children to attend high-quality education settings. (PBS NewsHour, Oklahoma Partnership for School Readiness, NAEYC)

POPULATION DESCRIPTION

The project would aspire to build on child care infrastructure with partnership organizations to provide high quality child care to OKCPS families and staff. Even before the pandemic the district?s student population was declining with district totals at 43,133 of which 13,157 were English Learners and 5,470 qualified for special education services in the 2019-2020 school year. Within this total, 2.6% of students identify as American Indian, 1.9% Asian, 20.7% Black, 56% Hispanic/Latino, and 0.3% Hawian/Pacific Islander who have been historically marginalized and disproportionately impacted by poverty which impacts 88.1% of students. Our district?s mobility rate is at 35.7% with 1,473 students experiencing homelessness. Our school district is represented by diverse students and their families who have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. Access to high quality child care further adds to the vulnerability of the communities served by the district. Children receiving early e

PERFORMANCE MEASURING

This project would provide high-quality child care allowing individuals to continue to return to the workforce. Further, children would be receiving high quality child care, to measure this the program would use the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (an evaluation instrument used for rating early childhood settings). Children receiving a high-quality child care experience are more likely to enter school prepared to learn. This will lead to an increase of students reading on grade-level (collected using our RSA screener), increase in OSTP test scores, leading to an increase in schools' A-F scores with decreases in the need for remediation. All of which is data currently collected by schools district for state reporting purposes.

ONGOING INVESTMENT AMOUNT

$

ONGOING INVESTMENT DESCRIPTION

None

ONGOING INVESTMENT REQUIRED

Able to continue operation without additional funding from the State of Oklahoma