Elevate Early Education

E3: Elevate Early Education + the new e3 school raise awareness, advocate + create innovative initiatives to give children equitable access to a quality Education for the first eight years.in 2011, e3 set out to make Early Education a priority + increase state investment along with our strategic partners. E3's awareness, advocacy + innovative initiatives led to increased public-private investment ($198m+ and $37m+) and transformational policy change. Now, thousands of children and families have equitable access to quality Early learning programs across virginia.now we are tackling the reading crisis in communities across virginia.as part of e3's five- year action plan, 24 listening sessions were convened across the state and we heard from business and civic leaders, school leaders, elected officials, parents, philanthropists, principals, current and retired teachers, reading specialists, school board members and higher Education to understand the challenges they were facing. A superintendent's roundtable discussion with the e3 board of directors kicked off the 2023 listening sessions.the stakeholders were from areas across virginia(charlottesville, lynchburg, norfolk, northern Virginia, richmond, roanoke and Virginia beach). The number one problem stakeholders were concerned about was the alarming data telling us that over 50% of third graders cannot read proficiently. These literacy initiatives were identified by stakeholders as priority areas for our work: launch an awareness campaign, grow dolly parton's imagination library (dpil) to get more quality books in the hands of all children, reach families with activities and tips to help children at home, create innovation and impact pilots to implement the Virginia literacy act and develop an Early literacy curriculum at the new e3 school to be replicated in other Early learning programs across the state.e3's literacy initiatives:10+ the right to read documentary screening events were curated in partnership with public media, philanthropists, policymakers, school divisions, libraries, the Virginia department of Education, uva and others. These events assembled an expert panel to raise awareness around the reading crisis, the implementation of the Virginia literacy act and build a coalition of supporters.raised awareness around that alarming data and the fact that Virginia must build, implement, and invest in literacy initiatives and the Virginia literacy act year after year to help more children read by third grade. Other states like Louisiana, Mississippi, north carolina, and Tennessee have taken a back-to-basics approach, invested year after year and have more children reading proficiently by third grade. Built a coalition of over 6,000 supporters. Provided families with Early literacy tips, activities + read aloud materials, and resources to improve literacy outcomes for children through digital media.raised over $2.5m in scholarships for over 100 children from low and middle-income families to attend the new e3 school.advocated for the Virginia literacy act(vla) and literacy initiatives to help children, families, teachers and schools. Legislation passed with bipartisan support. Over $31m+ secured for implementation of the vla and literacy initiatives.advocated for the dolly parton imagination library (dpil) of Virginia bill in partnership with the dollywood foundation, local partners, and many others. Legislation passed with bipartisan support to grow dpil's book gifting program to reach more children and families across Virginia. Appointed by the dollywood foundation to be the future state partner, e3 will promote, grow, and sustain dpil through a unique partnership between the dollywood foundation, Virginia department of Education, the legislature and local partners. It is a shared public-private funding model. Over 65,000 (14%) families with children birth to age five are receiving age-appropriate, quality books through the dpil book gifting program to ignite a love of reading in young children.advanced the expansion of our school's streamin3 model developed by uva in the new e3 school. Over 4,000 classrooms use the model across the state.over nine years ago, the new e3 school located in the park place neighborhood of norfolk, Virginia was created by e3 for children ages one to five. E3 worked with the city of norfolk, the ymca, business, civic and philanthropic leaders to create a prototype mixed-income model school to drive awareness, advocacy, innovation and impact for all children and families across the region and state. It is a "show and tell" model that led to bipartisan support, policy change and increased state investment to ensure more children in Virginia have equitable access to quality programs.we have proven year after year that when children have access to high quality Early learning, they enter kindergarten ready with the academic and social skills they need to thrive. E3 funded and partnered with the university of Virginia to develop and implement the streamin3 curriculum in our school. Ultimately, our goal was to ensure the model was replicated and scaled to impact even more children, families, teachers and programs. E3 raised awareness and advocated for the curriculum to be adopted and available through the Virginia department of Education. E3 + the new e3 school provided expert consultation to help other organizations create programs in Virginia and north carolina.the new e3 school's spring 2023 quality, literacy + readiness report prepared by uva tells us:teachers are engaged in high-quality interactions with children.the quality is consistent and strong in all classrooms.class scores exceed those from preschool classrooms in virginia.most three-and-four-year-old children are meeting or exceeding benchmarks in math, social skills and self-regulation.more three-and-four-year-olds need support in literacy.this is the second year that we are seeing an uptick in more children from all zip codes not meeting literacy benchmarks. We teamed up with literacy experts to address the language and literacy gaps.the impact:over 1,000 children impacted.100+ children received scholarships.over $2.5m in private dollars raised for scholarships.thousands of children, teachers and programs impacted in the region and state.