Educare New Orleans at Columbia Parc opened in October of 2013 in a new $8.9 million, 27,000 square foot state of the art facility, and currently serves 168 children ages 6 weeks to 5 years. The first two graduating classes of 5 year olds from Educare New Orleans have proven to meet or exceed national standards of kindergarten readiness at a rate of 94%.
The Educare model draws from a wide range of research-based practices that foster learning environments that support infants, toddlers and young children who are growing up in stressful, impoverished communities. Research shows that vocabulary growth among children from low-income homes lags behind that of their middle-income peers. Without intentional intervention, this gap, which is evident at 18 months of age, only continues to widen.
Activities and interactions are aimed at strengthening parents’ abilities to serve as champions for their child’s learning after they leave Educare and enter primary and secondary schools. At Educare Schools, teachers work with children – beginning in infancy and through preschool – and their parents to develop pre-literacy and early math skills such as letter and number recognition, problem solving, and counting. Equal emphasis is given to developing social-emotional skills: the ability to focus on a task, persistence, impulse control and cooperation with peers.