New Kindergarten Readiness Program available
Families Across Rural North Dakota Can
Now Register Their Four-Year-Olds
for a Kindergarten Readiness Program
(Bismarck, ND) February 12, 2020 — For a second year, rural families
across North Dakota have the opportunity to participate in a program that will
help their four-year-olds prepare for school. These additional resources are
thanks to a $14.2 million federal grant. The United States Department of
Education awarded the nonprofit organization,
Waterford.org an
Education Innovation and Research
(EIR) Expansion Grant with
a goal of finding solutions to persistent challenges experienced by rural
families in five western states through the Waterford UPSTART program.
Waterford.org was awarded the EIR expansion grant after
successfully serving rural families
in Utah.
“We’re grateful to be recognized for the important work we’ve been
doing in Utah for a decade,” said Benjamin Heuston, CEO of Waterford.org.
“Across the country, some 2.2 million families with 4-year-olds lack access to
resources that help children get ready for kindergarten, and we’re eager to put
this grant to use helping students in five more states prepare for a successful
school experience, no matter their location or socioeconomic background.”
The pilots are enrolling for year two in Wyoming, North Dakota, and
Idaho. South Dakota and Montana are also now enrolling for 2020. Chris Jones, Executive Director of ND’s
Department of Human Services says, “North Dakota sees this as an opportunity to
empower families to create time and space to learn and play together.”
For more information go to
www.waterfordupstart.org Spots are
limited. Enrollment ends June 29, 2020. Rural restrictions apply.
Waterford.orgWaterford.org is an early education nonprofit
with a mission to achieve universal literacy for children through parent empowerment, equity, and access. Waterford
develops tools that assist students along individualized learning paths toward
social-emotional learning such as saying please and
thank you and lifelong learning. Waterford empowers parents as a child’s
first teacher and supports teachers in taking the right actions at the right
time for their students. In total, Waterford.org serves more than 300,000
children every year through all our programs, and that number is continually
growing.
Waterford
UPSTART Waterford
UPSTART helps four-year-old children prepare for school at home and at no cost.
Parents are their child’s first and most
influential teachers and with this program,
they can help children develop foundational reading
and social-emotional skills. The children go through personalized
lessons with a family member for 15 minutes a day, five days a week in the year
before they start school. Waterford UPSTART also fuels family involvement in
their child’s early education through parent coaches and fun educational
activities parents can complete with their children offline. Waterford UPSTART
has been rigorously tested and proven, earning the program a
federal EIR grant and the title of a
TED Audacious project.