State Advisory Council Grant Application

Washington has been awarded about $1.7 million over a three-year period to support our state advisory council through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). Governor Chris Gregoire selected DEL as the lead entity in applying for and administering the funding because we house the state Early Learning Advisory Council (ELAC).

This grant will be used to support several key continuing projects:

  • Further development of a statewide governance structure for early learning
  • Support for the Professional Development Consortium and Seeds to Success (our state’s quality rating and improvement system)
  • Development of supplemental materials for the Washington State Early Learning and Development Benchmarks
  • Efforts to enhance pre-k through third grade alignment around literacy, numeracy and transitions
  • Quality assurance support for the Washington Kindergarten Inventory of Developing Skills (WaKIDS) process

DEL Director Bette Hyde invited several people to be part of a task force to guide this application.
Click for a list of current task force members.

What are the responsibilities of State Advisory Councils?

As laid out in the Improving Head Start for School Readiness Act of 2007, the SAC will be required to:

Work to strengthen state-level coordination and collaboration among the various sectors and settings of early childhood programs in the State.

Conduct periodic statewide needs assessments on the quality and availability of programs and services for children from birth to school entry, identify opportunities for and barriers to coordination and collaboration among existing Federal and state-funded early childhood programs, and develop recommendations for:

  1. increasing overall participation of children in existing Federal, State and local child care and early education programs, including outreach to underrepresented and special populations;
  2. the establishment or improvement of core elements of the State early childhood system, such as a statewide unified data collection system;
  3. a statewide professional development system and career ladder for early childhood educators; and
  4. high-quality state early learning standards. The Council will also assess the capacity and effectiveness of institutes of higher education in the State toward supporting the development of early childhood educators.

For more information, e-mail DEL Assistant Director for Partnership and Collaboration Kelli Bohanon at kelli.bohanon@del.wa.gov.