A compilation of findings from a statewide survey conducted Summer 2022

The 2022 report shares highlights from the South Carolina Family Voice Council which was born of a commitment from the public early childhood system to partner with families and listen, center, and co-create the future of programming and policies that impact families in our state.

The 33rd edition of the Annie E. Casey Foundation's KIDS COUNT^® Data Book describes how children in America are in the midst of a mental health crisis, struggling with anxiety and depression at unprecedented levels.

This year’s publication continues to present national and state data across four domains — economic well-being, education, health and family and community — and ranks states in overall child well-being. The report includes pre-pandemic figures as well as more recent statistics, and shares the latest information of its kind available.

The SC Joint Citizens and Legislative Committee on Children publishes the supplement to its annual report which has findings and recommendations for action on a variety of issues impacting the well-being of South Carolina’s children.

Ascend published “Toward A More Equitable Tomorrow: A Landscape Analysis of Early Childhood Leadership” that highlights key issues we face across the nation that are also mirrored in communities across our state.  The report identifies priority areas, such as supporting parents in locating job and educational opportunities to promote greater economic security, and the vital importance of shaping the direction our systems move by centering the experience, knowledge, and leadership of families. 

“South Carolina Pre-K to Kindergarten Transition Plan: Family Engagement” demonstrates the state’s collective capacity and commitment to ensure every child and family has the resources to learn, flourish and thrive. It includes a range of recommendations and opportunities identified to enhance, increase, and improve families’ engagement with preschool and school-based professionals, leading to shared understanding and goals around school readiness.

Telling the story of babies is more important than ever. The data included in the State of Babies Yearbook: 2022 help policymakers understand the indications that too many babies face risks that can undermine development and therefore their ability to reach their potential—in other words, what to pay attention to. The data also can help policymakers think strategically about progress—the actions that can be taken to create meaningful and sustainable change for all families with young children.

This strategic plan is a five-year roadmap for optimizing South Carolina's early childhood system and moving toward a shared vision of success for every child, from birth through age five.

The Kindergarten Readiness Assessment used by South Carolina public schools in fall 2020 was modified for use during COVID-19 pandemic conditions. Only 33 of the 50 items on the full KRA assessment were used. The omitted 17 items required observation of students interacting with others, activities limited by pandemic health measures of social distancing and mask-wearing. This Modified KRA version omitted two items from the Language and Literacy domain and three items from the Physical Well-Being and Motor Development domain; all 12 items from the Social Foundations domain were eliminated. The reduction of items prevented generation of scores for the Physical Well-Being and Motor Development and the Social Foundations domains. All available information obtained contributed to the calculation of the Modified KRA Overall readiness score and readiness classification level.

The 2020 State of Preschool report provides a first look at the COVID-19 pandemic’s impacts on access, quality, and funding for states’ preschool education programs. In most years, the State of Preschool reports only on the prior year (2019-2020 in this case), but this is not most years. As the data collection took place during the worst pandemic in more than a century, we added a special section to address the COVID-19 pandemic’s impacts on state-funded preschool. Although we were hopeful that the pandemic’s impacts would be modest and short lived, we worried that they would not be. This additional information, together with the main survey, provides a basis for reflecting on how access to high quality preschool has changed and what we can do to ensure more children, especially the most vulnerable, have the opportunity to attend high-quality (in-person) preschool at ages 3 and 4 in the future.

South Carolina's summary (link)