Regional Meetings on Early Learning and the Every Student Succeeds Act

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), signed into law in December 2015, bolsters federal support for early learning and provides opportunity to strengthen the birth-through-third grade continuum – a critical strategy to improve third grade reading proficiency. In September 2017, North Carolina submitted its state plan to comply with the federal law. Now, North Carolina Local Education Agencies (LEAs) are preparing their district ESSA plans for the 2018-19 academic year.

The North Carolina Early Childhood Foundation (NCECF) is partnering with the Office of Early Learning and the NC Head Start Collaborative Office at the Department of Public Instruction to support LEAs and early childhood community leaders in collaborating to develop the early learning components of the LEA’s ESSA district plans.

In January, we hosted four regional meetings to assist LEAs and early learning stakeholders in this work.

These meetings:

• Provided an overview of ESSA early learning requirements and opportunities,
• Prepared districts to engage cross-sector, early learning stakeholders in plan development,
• Supported districts in identifying data needed to inform decision-making, and
• Supported districts in beginning to outline early learning components to consider.