Henry and Dorothy
Message from the
Conflict of Interest Statement
Early Childhood
Request for Proposals
Mission & Core Values
Castle Memorial Fund
Executive Director
Funders Collaborative
Policy Statement
Collaborating with effective funders like the W.R. Kellogg Foundation, the Department of Human Services, the Harold K.L. Castle Foundation, the Atherton Foundation and Kamehameha Schools, we are working hard to establish an effective Pre-K to 3 education system. This effort, a major focus of our foundation for the next decade, will include grants to support pre-school capital improvements, teacher training in job-embedded and collegiate settings, curricular design and outcome assessments, limited pre-school tuition assistance, and state/federal policies that promote access to high quality early education by all of Hawaii’s families.
Clearly, the years between Pre-K and third grade are vital to creating a foundation for later school success. Currently, large numbers of children enter kindergarten without crucial learning abilities and emotional competencies, undermining their school and career prospects. These gaps continue to widen throughout early elementary school and, by third grade, children's school paths begin to diverge dramatically.
The last few decades have witnessed many attempts to reduce these gaps, often focusing on Pre-K or elementary school. Despite these efforts, successes have been modest and difficult to scale up across districts and states.
Promoting early success provides educational leaders and practitioners with an overarching framework and practical strategies to develop and sustain effective PK-3 programs - programs that strengthen and effectively align instructional, family engagement, social-emotional, and after-school supports. Each of these domains is critical for later school success; by coordinating powerful strategies across them, we can improve the odds that confront too many young children in our Pre-K and school systems.
Working with our private and public funding partners, we will fund initiatives that are solid contributors to success in instruction. Most early educators know that the critical components to an effective PK-grade 3 alignment include:
- Language and literacy: data-driven instruction and increased time in the classroom on learning activities.
- Curriculum alignment: strategies to help districts, administrators and teachers align curricula across content areas and PK-3 grades.
- Family engagement: techniques for building reading, numeracy, and rich conversations into daily routines at home; involving parents in literacy-rich activities at school; strengthening teacher-parent relationships through home visits and other approaches.
- Socio-emotional behaviors: strategies for effective behavior management, strengthening self-regulation and executive functioning, and creating a positive climate in classrooms and school-wide.
- After-school: strategies for integrating in-school curricula with after-school practices, increasing participation in out-of-school programs, and partnerships with community providers of after-school activities.
- Alignment across PK to third grade: best practices for developing common planning time across grades, integrating data on children's learning and behavior across grades.
- Integration: successful techniques for effectively layering in interventions over time and for integrating school, family and after-school interventions around important goals such as increased vocabulary.
In addition, we continue to seek proven instructional strategies for English-language learners, children with disabilities, and children from diverse racial, ethnic, immigrant and linguistic backgrounds. Concurrently, we seek to engage the D.O.E. in permanently institutionalizing the aligned Pre-K-3, support scale-up processes, accountability and evaluation.
- Building district- and community level buy-in and leadership: strategies include collaborative visioning with comprehensive stakeholder involvement, building buy-in "ground up" from a small number of pilot sites, and partnering with community providers.
- Policy supports: examples include union contract supports for PK-3, blended funding strategies, and state-and federal-level policy initiatives.
- Building support for accountability and evaluation: techniques for building data infrastructure across the PK-3 years; developing culturally-sensitive assessments of children's development; assessment of teacher skills, quality of programs, and system-level change.
As we prepare for a busy 2013 and our 119th year of service to Hawaii’s families, our trustees understand the urgency of our work. With Hawaii’s successful Race to the Top award combined with new public leadership, we have the opportunity to move comprehensive educational change and equity forward. Much of Hawaii’s future will depend on the choices political leaders and private funders make today.
Alfred L. Castle
Executive Director and Treasurer
January 1, 2013