The United States Department of Education awarded the nonprofit organization Waterford.org an Education Innovation and Research (EIR) Expansion Grant with a goal of finding solutions to rural educational challenges in five western states through the Waterford Upstart program. Select a category below, or scroll down to see our top rated activities and Social and Emotional Learning activities. Montana 3. (Her husband now works at a grocery store. In Indiana, where legislators worked for years on more preschool funding, $1 million was set aside for online kindergarten readiness in 2017. Find a Waterford Upstart program in your area. In total, Waterford.org serves more than 300,000 children every year through all of our programs, and that number is continually growing. Resources and Activities - Waterford UPSTART Welcome to Our Resources & Activities Center Looking for fun and educational activities to do with young children? Families who have children heading into kindergarten in 2022 can apply by going to www.waterfordupstart.org. Start Learning with Waterford Upstart . This program is FREE, however, all interested families need to sign-up to take advantage of this awesome program. LaTasha: My advice for them is to have an academic component that they can use at home, so that even if their kids are not able to go every day to a brick-and-mortar preschool, theyre still in the habit of consistently learning. Early results show those Montana children already using Waterford Upstart are seeing success. Rick: What does the program cost for families? There are no income or geographic restrictions. With the n. Consistency is important, too, because the efficacy of the program is based on students using the program for the required minutes per day. Instead, we seek to improve access to early-childhood education, particularly where access to transportation hinders access; where families choose not to send young children to site-based preschool; where English is not the primary household language; where children need an additional cognitive boost; where children are wait listed for site-based programs; or where children and their families face the technology gap because they have never had access to a computer. Currently, Waterford UPSTART serves over 15,000 families, and about 45,000 Utah children have participated, with more than 60% from low-income and spanish-speaking homes. Waterford Upstart also fuels family involvement in their childs early education through family coaches and fun educational activities parents can complete with their children offline. The graduation will be the only in-person event of the program, aside from registration. Waterford.org is a national early education nonprofit with a mission to achieve universal literacy through access, equity, and parent empowerment. He said Waterford Upstart would give participants a computer that they would keep, plus internet service for the duration of the program. Families who dont have a computer are provided with one, and, if needed, families are provided with internet access for the duration of the program as well. Rick: Waterford Upstart promises to provide mentorship for the students parents, beyond just teaching the students. Jacob@PRwithPanache.com 970-560-0856 Founded by ex-Googlers, Upstart goes beyond the FICO score to finance people based on signals of their potential, including schools attended, area of study, academic performance, and work history. Kindergarten Readiness opportunity provided by Waterford UPSTART 2) Meets the minimum debt to income requirement that total monthly debt payments listed on each of the consumer's credit report(s) not including rent or mortgage must not exceed (i) 45% if the applicant resides in Connecticut, Maryland, New York or Vermont, and (ii) 50% in all other states, of projected pre-tax income except that such It's More Complicated Than You Might Think, Support for Universal Pre-K Grows as More States Jump on Board, As Head Start Quality Push Continues, Advocates Raise Red Flag on Equity. Education Innovation and Research (EIR) Expansion Grant, Fisher Cats and education nonprofit team up to help New Hampshire children read, dream, Early Education Available for Ohio 4-Year-Olds, 52 Creative Writing Prompts for Kids to Let Their Imagination Fly. Waterford Upstart is an in-home, kindergarten readiness program that gives families the tools they need to become their child's first and most influential teachers, including a computer and internet access at no cost. It indicates, "Click to perform a search". Sign up for Waterford Upstart Summer Learning Path and help your child build academic skills and routines in less than 30 minutes each day. Waterford Upstart - Home - Facebook Waterford UPSTART scales up at-home learning in response to COVID-19 More than 150,000 children have used Waterford Upstart across the country, Families spend 15 minutes a day, 5 days a week on early literacy skills with their children, Upstart grads achieve 23x the learning gains compared to their peers. New Mexico became the latest state to approve investments in pre-K programs. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Slide 2 Federally-Funded Programs 1. If you need to contact Waterford Support, follow the instructions found in the video below to get in touch. Waterford Upstart is a proven, at-home learning program that helps prepare your child to start kindergarten with confidence. Waterford Upstart is not intended to replace any early-childhood education or effort already in place. A longitudinal study conducted by Evaluation and Training Institute showed that Upstart participants outperformed their non-Upstart peers on standard measures of literacy skills, like DIBELS and SAGE, through the 4th grade, the highest grade the students had achieved at the time of the study. So they pulled Jose out of the day care. Resources and Activities - Waterford UPSTART All of that cant be done online, he said. Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more. Sign up for the latest information on our programs, resources, and more. All rights reserved. Utah-based Waterford.org is bridging the gap through its kindergarten readiness program Waterford UPSTART. The first is through measuring early-literacy skill gains, both overall and within subcategories, from the beginning to the end of the program using the computerized adaptive Waterford Assessment of Core Skills test. A randomized controlled trial conducted by the Utah state board of education found that Waterford Upstart was successful helping children develop key early-literacy skills, and we have a second trial underway as we speak. Through the first 26 weeks of the 20202021 pilot program, the average overall reading score for students was 83.79. Waterford.org is a 501(c)(3)organization, and gifts aretax deductible as allowed by law. Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide elementary, middle, high school and more. ET. An Online Preschool Closes a Gap but Exposes Another, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/07/technology/preschool-online-waterford-upstart.html. About 50 have signed up so far; the goal for the county is a pilot of 200 families. Depending on the stipulations of any given funder, there may be an income limit to qualify to participate, but this is not always the case. That has pushed statehouses and city managers to search for other options. Rick: Why offer a program like Waterford Upstart? . Parents are often scared of the idea of an online school, Mr. Adams added, but once they get past the initial fear and you look at the data, its all there.. Now nearly half of Utahs 4-year-olds are enrolled in Waterford Upstart, Ms. In addition to the resource library, eligible families get: But Ms. Molina, who is an office clerk, said her husband was a field laborer, which meant gaps in wages between crop cycles. Waterford.org then works directly with eligible families who opt in to our program. Resources - Waterford.org Help Site Children receive a personalized curriculum in reading, math and science(including over 450 instructional hours) with an emphasis on reading. Resource Information for Child Nutrition Programs, Titles I, II, III, IV-A, 21st CCLC, Migrant, N&D, McKinney-Vento, REAP, Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP), Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR), School/Child Nutrition Food Program (SCH), The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), National ESEA Distinguished School Program, Advanced Placement Summer Institute (APSI), National Math + Science Initiative (NMSI), 21st CCLC Title IV, Part B - Nita M. Lowey 21st Century Community Learning Centers, Rural Education Achievement Program (REAP), Student Support and Academic Enrichment (SSAE), Title I Paraprofessional Certificate of Completion, Schoolwide Program Components: Evaluation, Schoolwide Program Components: Schoolwide Program Plan, Schoolwide Program Plan Components: Comprehensive Needs Assessment, ND ESSA Tribal Stakeholder and Tribal Consultation, ND Native American Essential Understandings, Comprehensive Literacy State Development (CLSD), North Dakota Systemwide Literacy Improvement, Reading Curriculum & Professional Development Webinar Series, Child Nutrition Programs Civil Rights Training, General Information and District Eligibility, Non-Public School Equitable Services and Eligibility, ESSER I, II, III Fund Eligibility and Claims, ESSER I, II, III Reporting and Monitoring, Selecting a Comprehensive Preschool Curriculum, Family Engagement in Early Childhood Settings in North Dakota, North Dakota Department of Public Instruction. Waterford UPSTART will provide a FREE Chromebook (which families may keep upon completion of the program if all requirements are met), as well as internet while families are enrolled in the program (must qualify). Get the latest education news delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for the latest information on our programs, resources, and more. I wanted to be on the front line right away.. Resources. This state funding means it costs you nothing! The program was established under the National School Lunch Act . Not surprisingly, many early-education experts balk at the idea of preschool online. Meet the Cottam family from Escalante, Utah.Living in an isolated and rural area like Escalante with a large family takes a little extra planning. Step 2: Submit an application to enroll your child in the program. State leaders are using federal funds to help families prepare their 4-year-olds for kindergarten. When can my child start upstart? - Wise-Answer Have a full time job, a full time job offer starting in 6 months (except if accepted to a partner bootcamp and seeking employment after graduation), a regular part time job or another source of regular income; Have a personal banking account at a U.S. financial institution with a routing transit number; Meet our minimum credit requirements; and Waterford Upstart is an in-home, early education program that prepares four-year-old children for kindergarten. Waterford UPSTART | Local nonprofit gets Utah kids ready for We empower parents as a childs first teacher, and we support teachers in taking the right actions at the right time for their students. In the event of a disagreement or discrepancy between the translation and the original English version of this web site or any notice or disclaimer, the original version will prevail. Rural families eligible for early education program | Local News All rights reserved. I thought this was too good to be true, he said. The NDDPI Selecting a Comprehensive Preschool Curriculum is designed to aid early childhood educators in choosing an effective pre-kindergarten curriculum that is appropriate for their program's staff and children and a curriculum that supports developmentally appropriate practice. LaTasha: Research has shown us that children who come to school ready to learn are far less likely to drop out, have trouble with the law, or experience intergenerational poverty. Time4Learning.