Washington Department of Early Learning awards funding for United Indians of All Tribes Foundation/Puget Sound Educational Service District preschool partnership.
Seattle, WA | June 11, 2014
Visit www.unitedindians.org to learn more about the United Indians of All Tribes Foundation.
Visit www.psesd.org to learn more about the Puget Sound Educational Service District.
Closing the academic opportunity gap for Native American children.
The Board and Staff of United Indians of All Tribes Foundation are pleased to announce that the agency is partnering with Puget Sound Educational Service District to re-establish a full-day preschool serving Native American families at the Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center, thanks to funding from the Washington Department of Early Learning. The partnership with Puget Sound Educational Service District and the re-establishment of early learning classrooms for Native children represent an important step in the revitalization of the Foundation, which lost funding in 2013 for the Head Start program housed for 27 years at the Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center and attended by generations of Seattle Native families. The partnership with PSESD will leverage the combined powers of both organizations to work towards closing the academic achievement gap for Native children, who currently have the lowest graduation rates among all Seattle Public Schools students.
“Children are the heart of our community and we are overjoyed to welcome a preschool back to Daybreak Star. United Indians is committed to ensuring all of our children have a strong start in life and school by offering culturally-relevant early childhood education and home visiting programs to the urban Native community”
says Lynnette Jordan, United Indians’ Family Services Director and Interim Director of Operations. The mission of United Indians, established in 1970, is to provide educational, cultural and social services that reconnect indigenous people in the Puget Sound region to their heritage by strengthening their sense of belonging and significance as Native people.