Shreveport Times: Shreveport partners with Caddo schools on early childhood education initiative

Makenzie Boucher, Shreveport Times

Shreveport will be partnering with the Caddo Parish Public Schools to start an early learning initiative that is aimed to improve access to early childhood education for Shreveport families.

"We are excited to announce today Shreveport's Early Start initiative," said Mayor Adrian Perkins.

This initiative will help 500 to 600 families get access to childcare for children between the ages of zero to three. This initiative was approved by the Shreveport City Council and $3 million have been appropriated to start the program.

"The lack of childcare is a barrier for many of our families to attain workforce job opportunities to improve our workforce here and it's also a barrier that blocks a lot of our families from getting educational opportunities and vocational opportunities as well," said Perkins. "Today, we help to remove that hurt."

Superintendent Dr. Lamar Goree said, "through the efforts of the mayor and the city council, we will receive this significant contribution so that we will see even more children in our community have access to high quality childcare."

Did you know that 80% of brain development takes place from birth to age 3, and 90% by age 4?

Goree said that children who are not exposed to 30 million words by the age of three they face neurological deficits that cannot be made up through teaching.

"If a child misses out on early learning, specifically, early vocabulary learning, the deficit is almost impossible to make up. We know getting students kindergarten ready will vastly change their trajectory, it will make them more likely to be reading on a third-grade level, more likely to graduate from high school, less likely to be involved in the justice system and frankly they will have a better life," said Kristina Gustavson, chief executive officer at Community Foundation of North Louisiana.

To learn more about the Shreveport Early Start Initiative visit, www.shreveportla.gov.

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