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Early Childhood Success Act Updates

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Early Childhood Success Act

All kids deserve the opportunity to succeed. Research shows brain development by age four has significant influence on future achievement or failure. Yet far too many children in Virginia don’t meet basic developmental benchmarks by this age and never catch up.

So that more children have access to early childhood services and supports that help prepare them for success, Virginia needs a new approach to early childhood development that brings together multiple disjointed programs into a comprehensive strategy. The Early Childhood Success Act will ensure structure, efficiency and accountability to the array of early childhood programs and significantly improve outcomes for children ages birth to five in Virginia.

Key Features:

Programs aligned/unified under Virginia Department of Education (VDOE)

  • Focus on developmentally-appropriate education, learning and teaching
  • Transfer key early childhood programs, funding and staff from Virginia Department of Social Services to VDOE to align and coordinate all EC programs supporting children’s early education and families’ workforce support needs
  • Overall Virginia’s early childhood system will be more unified, transparent, data-driven and resource-effective.
  • Board of Education develops detailed implementation plan. An early childhood advisory council will be established to advise Board of Education on design and implementation of EC system.

Early Childhood Innovation Fund Created

  • Incentivize local and regional public-private pilots aligned with GO Virginia regional workforce/economic development efforts to address both school readiness and workforce support needs
  • Foster/stimulate innovative and evidence-based strategies to meet the unique needs of Virginia’s diverse communities