Public Life Foundation, educational institutions partner in Ready4K

“The campaign last summer was more of an experiment as a way for us to engage directly with families with ideas and activities we encouraged parents to participate in,” he said. “We think there was some success with that with over 500 families taking part.”

Last summer’s campaign was created by local organizations, whereas the new initiative, Ready4K, is a national program.

“It was labor intensive creating a lot of content and sending out the information,” Berry said. “We went on a search in finding a partner to help us to improve, and that’s when we were introduced to Ready4K.”

Berry said Ready4K was developed by researchers at Stanford University and was created to help engage parents and families on child education.

“Texting is a more useful way to do that,” he said. “Parents are more apt to click a link from a text message than from an email or social media post.”

Through Ready4K, families will receive tips three times a week via text message, as well as information on traditional and trauma-informed curriculums.

“For the trauma-informed curriculum, families will receive tips and activities geared toward children who have been through adverse experiences,” Berry said.

Berry said he believes Ready4K is a useful program and has an impact in terms of reaching and interacting with families.

“The Public Life Foundation will be able to see how parents and children use the platform,” he said. “They have tools we didn’t have access to last summer and the capability to do this all year.”

After learning about Ready4K, Berry said he reached out to OPS, DCPS and The Center about participating.

“We talked to them to see what it would take for them to implement this, and they agreed to assist in enrolling families to the program and managing their databases,” he said. “The Public Life Foundation will underwrite the cost in implementing the program for all three organizations.”

Matthew Constant, OPS superintendent, said he doesn’t believe there’s a better investment to make than in early-childhood education.

“This landed within our influence because in the last year or so, the Public Life Foundation has gathered minds to focus on early-childhood education,” he said.

Constant said Ready4K will send out information to parents for ages birth to 5 years old.

“There are so many skills necessary to hit the ground running for kindergarten, like learning to play in an organized manner and the foundational start on sounds, words and reading,” he said.

For students who don’t attend preschool, Constant said there is a learning curve.

“Families at home should consider getting their child into a preschool program,” he said. “It’s an organized way of tackling those skills.”

Leslie Peveler, director of elementary schools and Multi-Tiered System of Support coordinator for DCPS, said this initiative provides the organizations a way to reach as many children in the community as possible to prepare them for school.

“Just about everybody has some form of a cellphone,” she said. “This platform is not necessarily one to stop and think about.”

Peveler said the program begins as soon as a parent opts into receiving text messages from Ready4K.

“The parents are able to choose what’s best for their families,” she said. “Our goal is to get as many people as we can to participate.”

Kindergarten registration is happening now for both OPS and DCPS, and any family looking to enroll their child can contact any school within the district for more information.

Erica Wade, executive director of The Center, said this program has the ability to connect parents and caregivers they serve with a “quality service” like Ready4K.

“We are in a unique position to interact with the families we serve, face to face, often multiple times each week, and our team is eager to share this effective tool with them,” she said.

Wade said The Center is grateful for PLF’s investment in early-childhood education initiatives like Ready4K.