Azusa Unified Now Identifies as a Pre-K through 12th District

Share On Social!

California educates about one in eight U.S. students.

In 2013, Governor Jerry Brown signed the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) into law, which is the most comprehensive school funding system in 40 years. The LCFF provides more equitable school funding with local flexibility and greater community engagement with the goal of reducing the achievement gap in education.

Early child education provides the highest impact in preventing achievement gaps.

Many families in California feel like they aren’t being adequately served by local early child care providers and want school districts to step up and take responsibility for early child education.

However, funding requirements and expectations are complex, and many school leaders don’t understand what is available to them or how multiple funding sources can be leveraged together to boost early child education.

That’s where Children Now helps. In addition to covering a broad range of education, health and child welfare policy issues, Children Now hosts webinars to educate early care directors and school leaders about state and federal dollars, and they provide technical assistance to help local school districts identify and structure funding opportunities for early child education.

Technical assistance is a valuable resource in underserved areas that may lack the education, expertise, time, and overall capacity to seek and manage the administrative, budgetary and programmatic requirements of multiple grants.

Children Now created a Sample Resolution document as a reference for local school districts to support early childhood education. The document includes sample board resolutions, alternative “resolved” clauses and alternative “whereas” clauses.

In August 2017, with support from Children Now, Azusa Unified School District (67.6% Latino) in Los Angeles County (48.5% Latino) took the first step to support early education in their district by adopting a resolution to identify itself as a Pre-K through 12th district.

Spread the word about technical assistance opportunities for early child education in California.