St. Mary Parish

Mission Statement: St. Mary Parish Ready Start Network brings together all early childhood providers and stakeholders cohesively for the greater good of providing families of children birth to five years old access to quality education.

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Vision Statement: Collaborating, Building, and Expanding Access to Quality Education.

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The St. Mary Parish Ready Start Network is an initiative created by the Louisiana Department of Education to uplift and promote kindergarten readiness by increasing access and promoting high-quality education for children of the St. Mary community. Our network is comprised of 7 education partners, with partners extending in early childhood centers, school systems, and Head Start. We promote professional development within our network dynamic by hosting trainings, education enrichment, and providing curriculum resources for all network partners and staff.

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Our network has maintained high-quality education with an overall classroom quality rating of Proficient for the 2019-2020 and an overall access rating of Excellent. We serve 788 children within St. Mary parish- five infants, nine one-year-olds,   14 two-year-old's, 243 three-year-old's, and 520 four-year-old's. We pride ourselves on having a rich and diverse network dynamic that extends from multiple demographics, educational, and ethnic backgrounds. For instance, our network serves 4 childcare centers, 3 school systems, and a Head Start program all administered through the network by the St. Mary Community Action Agency as the lead agency. Currently, we are the only Ready Start Network with a non-profit, community action agency as a lead agency in Louisiana, and our Chitimacha Tribal School and Yaamahana-Chitimacha Child Development Center provides a cultural element to our beloved network by residing on the Chitimacha native reservation and facilitating high-quality education to the tribe’s children. We work with many in the education realm with St. Mary parish, and value how the diversity of our network enriches our community and provides us with the advantage of being multifaceted in our education approaches.

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Ready Start Networks are coalitions of individuals committed to creating and implementing a bold local vision for early childhood. RSNs are driven by a community’s need to improve opportunities and inspire change for children birth to age five.  Each RSN brings together partners to continuously improve the quality of and access to early childhood opportunities in their community. Driven by local data and context, we do this in three keyways: develop intentional plans, secure and weave together resources, and implement creative solutions. Empowered Ready Start Networks accelerate efforts to help children be ready for school and successful in life. The work must be done to ensure our children’s futures, and it takes a village to make the change; we cannot do this without the help of strong forces.