About Early Childhood

     Mission:  "Ensuring Quality Childcare for All Children"
Goal:  To ensure all children enter kindergarten ready to learn        

  Calcasieu Parish Pre-Kindergarten contains classrooms within the school district that are funded by LA4, 8g, Title I, and Special Education grants as well as some local funds. This program provides daily education to 4 year olds in Calcasieu Parish.   

EARLY CHILDHOOD SPECIAL EDUCATION:
An educational evaluation is offered for children ages 3 through 5 years not enrolled in Kindergarten who may have special needs. Children are serviced in homes, early learning centers and within the school system.  

CIRCLE CENTER: 
The goal of CIRCLE is to assist families in improving and integrating adult education, early childhood education, parenting, health information, and everyday living skills into a unified family literacy program. CIRCLE, located at 1618 Mill St., welcomes all families who have children between birth through age 7 years old. Pregnant women are also encouraged to attend.   

EARLY CHILDHOOD COMMUNITY NETWORK:
As directed by Act 3, Calcasieu Parish has worked together to create a unified system of high quality, publicly-funded options to families to ensure more children enter school kindergarten ready. This network is comprised of a local early childhood community network that includes every publicly Pre-Kindergarten, Child Care, and Head Start program within the parish.  

The state coordinates these community networks by designating a Lead Agency for each community to coordinate essential activities, specifically observations and enrollment. The Lead Agency also serves as fiscal agent.  

1. Conduct administrative functions for the community network
2. Coordinate CLASS observations assuring that accurate observations are conducted for all Toddler and Pre-K
     classrooms and that feedback is provided to all programs
3. Coordinate the birth-to-age-five enrollment and the state funding application for the community network