Monthly Report

January & February 2008

The Early Childhood Mental Health committee is working on the Centre County Community Foundation grant proposal for the 2008 Speaker Series. The topics are the effects of nutrition and sleep on behavior in young children.
This committee has submitted its letter of intent for the Mental Health Consultation to Child Care Project to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The Parenting and Literacy committee has completed revisions for the 2008-2009 Pre-K calendar. The calendar is being developed and a proof of the calendar should be generated in early March. The committee is also working on raising money from local businesses for the production of the calendar. So far $4,350.00 has been raised.
The planning for the "One Book, Every Young Child Project" has begun. Letters have been sent inviting family day care providers to participate. The author of the book Up, Down, and Around, Katherine Ayers, will do a presentation on April 8th at Easterly Parkway Elementary at 7:00pm, and then again on April 9th at 11:00am at the Schlow library and the public is invited to both of these events.

The sub-committees of the Early Care and Education committee are working diligently on their transition projects.
The February 9th, Kick-Off to Kindergarten Event was a success! State College, Bellefonte, Bald Eagle, and Penns Valley Area School Districts along with many other private schools participated in the event. The schools and school districts provided information to parents about the kindergarten registration process. The event also included story times and crafts for the children and a raffle where “tool-kits” were given to the winners. Many thanks to the Child-to-School sub-committee and everyone who participated and made this event possible.
The Family-to-School sub-committee has completed its Kindergarten Parents Survey. The goal is to distribute the survey throughout all the school districts in Centre County during parent conferences this spring with the hopes of having the surveys completed by May.
The School-to-School sub-committee has finalized its “Getting to Know Your Child” form. This will be available to parents and child care providers on the Smart Start website soon.
The Community-to-all sub-committee will be adding the important dates and information about Kindergarten registration for all of the school districts in Centre County to the Smart Start website.

Please visit the Smart Start website at www.smartstartcc.org to view Health and Nutrition Resources.

This committee will be working to develop tools and make them available to the early childhood education community to support their advocacy efforts with the new round of State budget talks.

We would like to welcome Sue Seely as co-chair of the ECE Transition Team. We thank Linda Duerr for her leadership and service over the past 3 years.
The Smart Start Board has two projects they are working on. One is the creation of the 2009 Family Friendly Award for local businesses through the Chamber of Business and Industry of Centre County (CBICC). Our founding sponsor for this award is PNC Bank. The other project is a fundraiser with the United Way and the State College Spikes. We will be asking Smart Start Stakeholders to sell tickets for the Spikes game on August 13, 2008. Anyone who would like to help with this fundraiser would be welcome and appreciated.