With the tiniest bit of dread, I started my ReImagine Early Years site visits last week, knowing that the long week of driving and meetings would keep me from other work and most likely leave me buried in email by week's end.  

For those of you unfamiliar with the initiative, ReImagine Early Years is a partnership between the ECIC, Kellogg Foundation, and Michigan Department of Education that is providing 11 Project ReImagine sites with financial support and technical assistance for their efforts focused on the prenatal through age 8 educational continuum.  As ECIC is the lead agency and the fiduciary for the ReImagine Early Years initiative, I set out to meet with each of the local teams in order to finalize the work plans and budgets for their projects.  

As I started to rack up miles and admittedly too many fast food meals, instead of my anticipated exhaustion, with every team meeting I felt more energized and completely excited by the clear evidence of a rising early childhood movement and an overwhelming dedication to improving educational outcomes for all children in Michigan.  Here are some quick examples:    

In Grand Rapids, I found a true collaboration between the Great Start Collaborative, Great Start Regional Resource Center, and the local school district that prioritized connections with child care providers, especially informal providers.  Let me repeat:  a local early childhood/K-12 partnership to engage and provide supports to those who are caring for young children outside the formal system.

In Detroit, I toured a state-of-the-art charter school---by far the most amazing school environment I have been in---that is now interested in expanding services to children birth through school entry.  Subsequent conversations with several other charter schools in the area revealed new, but significant, interest in providing more vulnerable children with high quality early learning opportunities.

In northern Oakland County, I met with an early childhood team and a district administrator who are making plans to extend language immersion and stringed instrument instruction to preschool students and to increase PK-K transition support for all children.  Our conversations, that included the local Great Start Collaborative, also created linkages to support collaborative recruitment and enrollment, shared professional development, and blended preschool programming.

Just outside of Kalamazoo, my meeting with a local school district and community resource center revealed significant commitment to providing young children and families with the necessary supports prior to and into early elementary through the development of individual educational plans and development of corresponding data systems.

In Grand Traverse County, a large ReImagine Early Years team---representing multiple school districts and community partners within their intermediate school district---greeted me with celebratory ice cream treats and an intensive plan for assessing, supporting, and adequately preparing every young child in their vast service area for kindergarten through parent education, utilization of family navigators, and overarching quality improvement and alignment efforts across early learning (PK-3) settings.  

Like I said, it was quite a week.  Despite my original feelings of apprehension, the opportunity to really engage at the local level with people who, despite seemingly never-ending economic and legislative barriers, continue to operate and act in the best interest of children was truly a gift.  I am humbled by their dedication and am very much looking forward to my six remaining site visits.  

In the words of Willie Nelson, "On the road again...I just can't wait to get back on the road again..."