Preschool Partnership Grants awarded for fiscal year 2017

Bravo to a diverse array of Kentucky school districts and local child care and Head Start organizations for their innovative leadership in partnering to promote school readiness in their communities.

This week, the Kentucky Department of Education announced the completion of the review process for fiscal year 2017 awards to school districts and their partners through the Preschool Partnership Grant program. A total of 23 school districts have received awards for up to $25,000 in Tier I planning grants and 46 school districts have received awards of up to $150,000 for Tier II implementation grants.

Awards can be found at KDE's website.

We commend the leaders from state agencies and advisory groups that worked to advise and fine-tune the grant requirements as well as those who provided technical assistance to potential grantees. This is a major step toward promoting strong partnerships across school districts and child care to increase the number of children served in high-quality, full-day preschool settings - which supports school readiness as well as working families.

As we have highlighted before, the Preschool Partnership Grants were authorized in the 2017-18 biennial budget through a $7.5 million/year set-aside from the preschool appropriation. This year will prove an important time to learn from the efforts of local partnerships, analyze the data, and set the course for stronger partnerships to benefit our youngest Kentuckians well into the future.