Where We’re Going Increased Collaboration in Program Planning and Evaluation

The School as Hub Birth–Grade 3 Approach supports districts, schools, and programs as they transition from traditional, accepted educational practices to an approach focused on quality, continuity, and equity for young children and their families. This change represents an iterative, developmental process. Districts, schools, and programs will find themselves at various stages of this process throughout their journey. During the initial years of implementation, it became clear that, for the Superintendents’ Plan to achieve its desired level of impact on closing the opportunity gap for children birth–Grade 3, specific tools and resources were needed to make the “Six Big Ideas” of the approach concrete and actionable. As part of this effort, Institute staff facilitated an intensive review of the literature and evidence from the first years of implementation. This resulted in the development of the guiding framework (Figure 7), an action planning guide, and the principles highlighted in Table 4.