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First Steps News
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 31, 2006
[ link to pdf ]
General Assembly’s Budget Expands Services
to Young Children in Poverty
Columbia, S.C. – The South Carolina General
Assembly’s newly passed 2006-2007 fiscal year budget includes
more than $25.5 million to expand high quality early childhood
interventions for young children in poverty. The budget allocates
a total of $23.5 million for the expansion of 4-year-old kindergarten
(4K) to low income children residing in plaintiff districts
in the state’s long-standing school funding lawsuit. Of
this funding, $7.85 million is earmarked for the expansion of
4K in private, non-profit and faith-based settings through South
Carolina First Steps to School Readiness.
"This
is a landmark step and a tremendous vote of confidence in our
young agency," said First Steps Vice-Chairman Lewis Smoak,
a Greenville attorney. "South Carolina’s General
Assembly is to be applauded not only for expanding 4-year-old
kindergarten but for looking at fresh and innovative ways of
doing so. If the state’s early childhood infrastructure
is to survive a large scale 4K expansion, then the private sector
must play an active role. We are delighted to facilitate this
process."
First Steps has a 6-year history of funding 4K in both school
district and non-school district settings.
In addition, the budget contains $2 million to develop First
Steps’ Centers of Excellence in plaintiff districts. Using
public and private support and existing childcare centers, Georgetown
County First Steps piloted the Centers of Excellence project
in 2005 to provide high-quality early education to at-risk children
ages 0-4. These centers currently serve 130 children, who are
carefully screened for risk factors associated with school readiness.
In December 2005, Circuit Court Judge Thomas W. Cooper ruled
in the school funding lawsuit that South Carolina’s educational
system fails to adequately fund early childhood interventions
for young children in poverty.
"Judge Cooper
has focused the entire state on what First Steps exists to do,"
said South Carolina First Steps Executive Director Susan DeVenny.
"If South Carolina aspires to improve its educational achievement,
we’ve got to start early – particularly with high
risk children. This is a remarkable step forward."
The budget now awaits the approval of Governor Sanford.
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