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.

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)

A statewide transitions survey captured 584 responses statewide to provide information to inform the state plan as well as for the development of tools and resources for parents and providers. 

South Carolina's Birth through Five Plan will build a coherent framework for our collective efforts to strengthen the early childhood system.  It will bring together various strategic planning efforts conducted over the past five years into a bold, comprehensive, actionable strategy for our state that includes joint interagency commitments.

The State Children's Cabinet Network's 2020 State Policy Survey is the nation’s only survey of state child and youth policy coordinating bodies. The summary of findings offers insights to those who work to serve opportunity youth.

The KRA analysis provides information on children’s preparedness for kindergarten. It is administered by a teacher;  the  teacher  interacts  directly  with  the  child  for  the  selected-response  and  the performance task items. It is designed to give reports for an individual child, as well as cohorts of children, such that achievement may be examined at the classroom, school, and district levels, as well as according to child demographics.

Two-generation (2Gen) approaches build family wellbeing by intentionally and simultaneously working with children and the adults in their lives together. As children, parents, and families grow and change across their lifespan, 2Gen approaches align opportunities to help families pursue their goals and thrive, optimizing each person’s potential along the way. The results are healthy parents with family-supporting jobs, healthy children meeting developmental milestones, and better-connected individuals able to participate in civic and family life.