Educare partner speaks to California State Senate
March 12, 2015
“We are really excited to be bringing the first Educare to California,” Lisa Kaufman, Ph.D., director of early learning services for the Santa Clara County Office of Education, told members of the California State Senate on March 4.
Kaufman spoke on behalf of the many partners, including the Santa Clara County Office of Education, who have brought Educare California at Silicon Valley to life. The school is under construction and will open later this year.
The California State Senate Committee on Budget and Fiscal Review held the hearing, which offered an opportunity to share with the committee the importance of innovative programs like Educare that provide nurturing early education and family support.
“We think that Educare could be a model of best practice that not only can inform the early learning services for the 168 children that will be directly served, but also through other strategies that can be scaled to build further quality to other sites either locally, in the county and maybe even statewide,” Kaufman said.
Kaufman discussed the need in the Silicon Valley area for high-quality early learning services, the Educare model and the services that the school will provide for children, their families and the community. In addition to offering direct services, the school will house a Family Resource Center and a Professional Development Institute that will share Educare’s best practices with early learning professionals on a larger scale.
The hearing, titled “Perspectives on California’s Child Care and Development System,” also covered California’s current early education system and how it addresses child poverty. Watch a video of the hearing (Kaufman starts speaking at 02:06:30) and read the hearing agenda.
