Getting the Future Off to a Bright Start
Transforming access to high-quality early childhood education
In its vision to become “the best big-city school district in the country,” Denver Public Schools is on its way to making full-day preschool and kindergarten classes available to every child in the city. Very smart.
Strategy
Get every child off to a strong start in school by expanding full-day preschool and kindergarten offerings, increase the number of preschoolers served and establish a process for measuring preschool quality that ties additional funding to high-performing classrooms.
What it takes
“When you look at data over the decades, you see that it matters a great deal for kids to get off to the right start in school,” said Michael Bennet, former Superintendent of Denver Public Schools and current U.S. senator of Colorado. “The better they do early on, the better they do throughout their academic lives.”
Backed by a remarkable show of support from local voters, civic leaders and the business community, Denver Public Schools had the funds to expand and improve early childhood education. Given the initiative’s citywide scale and aggressive, nine-month timeframe, “we engaged Point B to provide the bandwidth of skills to take this opportunity and make it operational,” said David Suppes, Chief Strategy Officer for Denver Public Schools. “Point B did a terrific job of working with diverse stakeholders and bringing together the students, teachers and classrooms, along with the process to get the funding in place. They brought us the structure, processes and leadership skills that were instrumental in helping us get from a good idea to reality.”
Working alongside district staff from the back office to the boardroom, Point B created a comprehensive, detailed approach and provided leadership across the entire program—including communications, marketing, financial modeling, facilities improvement and construction, enrollment processing, tuition billing processes and policy.
At the same time, we oversaw all aspects of getting 197 preschool classrooms in 82 schools quality-rated, and established the ongoing process for assessing classroom quality by Qualistar, an independent nonprofit group.
Reality
In 2008, the district increased full-day preschool capacity by 40 percent over 2007, and full-day kindergarten by 30 percent. It also earned some of the highest quality ratings ever given to any early childhood education provider—public or private—by an independent assessment group. These ratings secured an additional $2 million in 2008 public funding. The district continues to expand early childhood education as a pillar of its broader Denver Plan for educational reform. And Point B continues to help, defining goals for 2009–2010 and creating a roadmap to offering every child a strong foundation for academic success.
See Point B's Point of View on Vision