INDERGARTEN R EADINESS E NTRY P ROFILE

Out of the critical need to define and measure readiness for incoming Kindergarten students, the Kindergarten Readiness Entry Profile (KREP) was developed by Gwinnett County Public Schools. They recognize that a child’s readiness for school is not solely defined by academic performance, but by socioemotional readiness as well. KREP was designed to measure skills in all domains of a child’s development including Cognitive Development, Communication Language and Literacy, Motor Skills, Social Emotional Development, and Approaches to Learning. The information derived from KREP informs all layers of school functions, including teacher instruction, school class lists, and district data determining a child’s Kindergarten readiness entering GCPS. To meet the Kindergarten curriculum readiness benchmark, students need to score a minimum of 70% on the KREP.

The percentage of children not ready for Kindergarten hovered at 52% for the 2018 & 2019 school years. This equated to nearly 6,000 GCPS students requiring remediation in order to access the curriculum upon entering Kindergarten. Significant gaps in Kindergarten readiness have existed across Gwinnett County with students arriving unprepared in all elementary schools. Furthermore, lack of Kindergarten readiness crosses all social, economic, demographic, and geographic boundaries. Many of these young children were arriving to Kindergarten as much as 18 months to 2 years developmentally and/or academically behind, rendering them unprepared (and therefore, disadvantaged) to access the curriculum, requiring costly interventions and substantial remediation time.

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic began, showing a significant impact on childcare that remains pertinent. During the height of the pandemic, Gwinnett County saw 53% of early learning centers close their doors, or go completely virtual, as was the case with all Lottery Funded Pre-K classes. With schools and early learning centers closed or operating at reduced capacity, many parents were forced to learn how to foster early learning while simultaneously working from home.

Additionally, the pandemic exposed and exacerbated existing inequalities in access to childcare, with underserved communities being disproportionately affected. Many families struggled to afford the cost of childcare, and the closure of early learning centers made it even more difficult for parents to find affordable, high-quality care for their children.

Fast forward a year, the early learning centers that survived the pandemic are back to in-person instruction, but the impact is clear: permanent closure of close to 30 providers with a decrease in almost 300 seats across the county have resulted in an increase of the number of children entering Kindergarten unprepared. The GCPS KREP data showed that 54% of incoming students were not ready.

This year’s current data shows 51% of children entering not ready, which is a decrease of 3% equating to ~360 more students entering our classrooms this year ready to access the curriculum on day 1 without interventions. African- American students showed an improvement of 5% over last year and Hispanic students a 2% increase. This shows the lowest number of children entering not ready since the beginning of KREP administration in 2018. Had it not been for the continued, laserfocused work of the Gwinnett Early Learning Working Group, we would not have been able to move the needle on Kindergarten Readiness.