What is PreK-3rd?
- Public responsibility for full-school-day education starting at age three
- Voluntary, Full-Day PreK for three-year-olds
- Voluntary, Full-Day PreK for four-year-olds
- Required, Full-School-Day Kindergarten
- Aligned educational strategies and resources within and across grades
- Aligned standards, sequenced curriculum, instruction, and assessments
- Well-rounded and comprehensive curriculum, including arts, physical education, social and emotional learning, science, and history
- Joint planning and shared professional development among all PreK, Kindergarten, and Grades 1-3 teachers and staff
- Principal leadership to support joint professional development around curriculum and instruction
- Family engagement focused on supporting learning and instruction
- PreK-3rd teachers with the same qualifications and compensation as all teachers
- Lead teachers qualified to teach any grade from PreK through Third Grade
- Teaching assistants with A.A. degrees.
Learn about the components that make up PreK-3rd.
Why Prek-3rd?
By the Fourth Grade, only one-third of all American children can read at grade level. For Latino, Black, and American Indian children, the numbers are much worse. More than 80 percent cannot read at grade level by Fourth Grade. Research demonstrates that if children do not gain the skills and habits necessary to succeed in school by age eight, they will struggle to perform well and be less motivated for future learning in middle and high schools. They will also struggle to develop the higher order thinking, communication, analytic and social skills that are the essential for success in life.
Improving the ability of America's children to compete globally requires that they have a solid foundation in reading, writing, math, and science, and are able to be creative and work productively with others. The years from PreKindergarten through Third Grade (PreK-3rd) are critical to developing these competencies.