Educare

The Long Beach Unified School District is welcoming a nationally recognized cutting-edge early childhood education program to Long Beach’s education ecosystem. The school will be built at Barton Elementary School in North Long Beach.

The Educare of Los Angeles at Long Beach is a collaborative partnership between the Long Beach Unified School District, Early Head Start/Head Start, Child Development Centers State-Preschool, First Five California, the Educare Learning Network, and various private sector donors.  The mission of Educare is to promote school readiness, reduce the achievement gap and break the cycle of poverty by enhancing the social and cognitive development of children ages 0 to 5 years through the provision of evidence-based education, health, nutritional, social, and other services to enrolled children and their families.

The Educare of Los Angeles at Long Beach is much more than another early learning center. Educare is a school that is specially designed with young children in mind and is open to the community as a model of high quality and a beacon of hope for families; a program designed to build strong connections between home and school based on current early childhood research with the goal of changing the life trajectory of high need, at-risk children and families; and an early childhood education policy in practice. Educare programs contribute to the field by being effective spokespeople for the need to strengthen policies and systems to support the use of evidence-based early learning practices on the ground. The Educare Network of schools is redefining the essential competencies for early childhood leaders in the 21st century by focusing not only on practice, but also on understanding and articulating the intersection between practice, policy and research as a way to leverage change in the early childhood field. 

Educare invests in both the children and the families to provide real opportunities for parents to develop parenting, job and life skills in order to become role models for their children.  By having this model school as an example of how public and private dollars can be leveraged to maximize results for children and families at-risk, policy makers and business leaders will have an opportunity to see the real payoffs of investing in quality early care and education.

Educare is a welcome addition to one of the most celebrated school districts in the country.