The Michigan Association of Intermediate School Administrators’ (MAISA) Early Childhood Committee offers two resources that can be used to advance early childhood education programming in your community. Prepared by experts in early childhood education, both contain useful, up-to-date information. Both are available to you free of charge and are posted at: www.michiganedusource.org. The two resources are:

A Menu of Low-Cost Ideas to Support School Readiness for Children Newborn to Age Five.

This reproducible and customizable brochure contains many low-cost strategies for promoting children’s social and emotional development, parent education and children’s early literacy. Use it in your district. Share it with those in the community who are working with our youngest citizens to promote their school success. To customize this brochure with your logo, contact Lena Montgomery at Wayne RESA: montgol@resa.net.

State and Federal Programming for Newborns to Age Five: An Informational Review and Reference.

Available in both on-line and pdf format, this resource has web links to all known state and federal programs that serve this age group, including programs for children, family support programs and community-based programs. Use this resource to discover and collaborate with existing efforts to foster and maintain quality early childhood programming in your area.

As you know, early childhood programs:

• Improve achievement for all—since students who come to school learning are more likely to be successful in school.
• Help meet No Child Left Behind Act goals—and adequate yearly progress by preventing early learning failure.
• Save precious general education revenue and resources—by reducing/eliminating the costs for remediation.
• Reduce special education costs—by early identification and early intervention for students at risk of developmental delays.
• Create feeder programs for public schools—families who have early positive experiences with public schools are more likely to choose public schools when it comes time for kindergarten.
• Improve the local economy—as Governor Granholm has said, “Perhaps the single most important key to economic development is the one that opens the doors to learning in the minds of our young ones today. In the knowledge economy, business and education are linked; you cannot succeed at the former if you do not excel at the latter.”
• Build great adults—students who are successful in school are more likely to become stable, well-educated citizens who give back to the community.

And, by embracing early childhood programs your district has the opportunity to:

• Influence early childhood policy and programs.
• Show leadership in school improvement by modeling best educational practices.
• Expand community links and collaboration with other agencies and businesses.

If you have questions about the work of MAISA’s Early Childhood Committee, call MAISA at 517.327.5910.