Signs of Success from PreK-3rd Strategy in Bremerton, Wash.

An initiative to help children prepare for school has been quietly underway in Bremerton, Wash. over the past several years — and we’re starting to see signs that it’s working. Linda Sullivan-Dudzic, the Director of Special Programs in Bremerton, WA, explained the underlying philosophy of the Early Learning Program in a recent interview with Public School Insights, a website maintained by the Learning First Alliance for discussion of “what works” in public schools.

In the interview, she touches on a number of ingredients that appear to have played a role, including partnerships with community-based providers, “friendly accountability,” and PreK-3^rd alignment.

The program focuses on creating partnerships with numerous community-based preschool providers: “We’ve had deep relationships in the community,” Sullivan-Dudzic said. It was important, she added, that the district partner with existing schools to make curricula more rigorous and offer district-provided literacy coaches. Working with faith-based and community-based organizations allowed the district to reach almost 600 students immediately.

The Early Learning Program encourages preschools to use data and research-driven curricula, which it pays for. The program doesn’t require that programs measure up to narrow data benchmarks, but instead, employs what Sullivan-Dudzic calls “friendly accountability.” The early childhood group hosts monthly staff development meetings at which school leaders “showcase” how they are using the new curricula provided by the district.

The most important component of the Early Learning Program’s success is aligning what happens in preschool with what is taught in elementary school, according to Sullivan-Dudzic. “Preschools need a consistent curriculum that is aligned with K-3,” she said, “and K-3 needs to align with preschool.” Sullivan-Dudzic concluded: “You can’t talk about preschool unless you talk about K-3.”

Bremerton is yet another district that is catching on to the need for PreK-3rd alignment, and we’d like to see more follow in its path. The successes at Bremerton (measured in the graph below) show that collaboration between preschools and elementary schools, between public and private pre-K programs and between teachers and administrators leads to long-term benefits for all students.