The Webster Parish Early Childhood Ready Start Network serves 10 Early Learning Centers, 5 school sites, and 3 Head Start centers. During the 2022-2023 school year, we served 517 publicly funded seats in public school PreK, Head Start, and Early Learning Centers. We continue to see an increase in enrollment as we currently serve 544 students in these eligible seats. Webster Ready Start Network’s 2022-2023 CLASS score, which measures quality teacher-child interactions, averaged (5.31), which increased to the high proficient range. Our Emotional Support, Classroom Organization, and Emotional and Behavioral Support CLASS scores are in the High Proficient/Excellent range for all site types, while our Instructional Support and Engaged Support for Learning CLASS scores fall in the Approaching Proficient/Proficient range for each site type for 2022-2023. This indicates a need for additional professional development in these two areas. Another factor is the workforce turnover in these programs. In the Spring of 2020, we became a part of the Cohort 3 Ready Start Network initiative. We have formed our Ready Start Network Advisory Council who works collaboratively to execute a bold local vision to improve opportunities and inspire change for children birth to age five. Council members focus on improving the quality, accessibility, and affordability of early childhood services throughout our network. The LDOE Birth to 3 seats initiative awarded Webster Ready Start these tuition free, high quality childcare seats to 48 families in our community (2022-23) and has increased to 61 CCAP B3 seats for 2023-24.

Louisiana is ranked 8th in the country for its early childhood education policies. Even with this achievement, there continues to be significant access and quality challenges. Webster Ready Start Network builds on Louisiana’s success by bringing our local community members together to create, implement, and support early childhood to address challenges. We are committed to creating and implementing a bold local vision for our early childhood network. Driven by local data and context, Webster Ready Start Network will continue to do this in three key ways: create a specific plan for our network, develop an advisory council and governing board made up of community stakeholders, and secure resources to improve opportunities and inspire change for our Webster Parish birth to age five children.