Lead Agency 

Alabama Department of Children's 

Affairs 

Year 1 Federal Award Amount 

$17,500,000 

Plan Period 

January 1, 2015 – December 31, 2018 

Preschool Development Grants will support 

states to build, develop, and expand voluntary, 

high-quality preschool programs for children 

from low- and moderate-income families. 

There are two types of grants. 

Development Grants are for states that currently 

serve less than 10 percent of four-year-olds and 

have not received a Race to the Top – Early 

Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC) grant. 

Expansion Grants are for states that currently 

serve 10 percent or more of four-year-olds or 

have received an RTT-ELC grant. 

GRANTEE ABSTRACT 

Alabama
 

Overview 

Alabama’s Preschool Development Grant 

application presents a plan to further develop 

and enhance High-Quality voluntary First Class 

Pre-K to all children in Alabama. Alabama’s 

ambitious and proven plan for expanding 

access to High-Quality Preschool Programs has 

been incrementally developed, implemented 

and refined since 2000. The Office of School 

Readiness (a division of the Alabama 

Department of Children’s Affairs) is responsible 

for identifying potential sites in the state for new 

preschool programs, for authorizing the 

establishment of new High-Quality Preschool 

Programs, and for supporting and monitoring 

pre-k programs throughout the state. These 

programs are known as First Class Pre-K and 

have established guidelines, operating 

procedures, and quality standards that are 

regularly monitored to promote student success. 

Participation in Alabama’s First Class Pre-K 

program is voluntary. Services and programs 

are delivered in a variety of settings, with 

diverse partner agencies, while maintaining 

consistent, high quality standards. Alabama’s 

First Class Pre-K program is nationally 

recognized for quality by the National Institute 

for Early Learning Research (NIEER). For the 

past eight years (2006-2014) Alabama First 

Class Pre-K has met all of the National Institute 

for Early Learning Research (NIEER) 

benchmarks for quality standards, and in 2014 

Alabama was one of only four states in the 

country to receive this distinction. 

Alabama Governor Robert Bentley has 

provided unparalleled support for High-Quality 

Pre-K, and it is his foremost education priority. 

The addition of funds from the Preschool 

Development Grant will enable the Office of 

School Readiness to significantly increase 

access to High-Quality Preschool Programs in 

the communities of Alabama with the greatest 

need through an achievable and proven plan. 

Alabama’s goal of access to High-Quality 

preschool for all four-year-old children has 

always been and remains an ambitious one— 

access and highest quality for all. 

This abstract was submitted as part of Alabama’s Preschool Development Grant Application. 1 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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DEVELOPMENT GRANTEE: ALABAMA
 

A needs assessment conducted to identify the 

High-Need Communities in Alabama 

determined the 23 counties with the highest 

level of need when ranked with these criteria: 

percentage of Eligible Children, percentage of 

four-year-olds being served in pre-k, graduation 

rate, presence of failing school(s), juvenile 

violence rate, percentage of dual language 

learners, percentage of single parent families, 

and retention rates for both first grade and ninth 

grade. The 23 counties with the highest levels 

of need were divided into two groups, with 

higher priority being given to those with k-12 

schools identified as “failing” by the Alabama 

State Department of Education. 

The High-Need Communities are a mixture of 

rural and urban areas and are distributed 

geographically throughout the state, Alabama 

seeks to provide all children the benefits of 

early learning experiences that have been 

proven to profoundly influence a child’s success 

in school and throughout life. A study on the 

benefits and impact of Alabama First Class PreK, begun in November 2013, found: Alabama 

First Class Pre-K students consistently over 

time and across grades score higher in reading 

and math than students who did not participate 

in First Class Pre-K; miss fewer days of school 

than students who did not participate in First 

Class PreK; are less likely to need special 

education services than students who did not 

participate in First Cla

demonstrate significant growth in access to 

state-funded pre-k programs while protecting 

high quality for each First Class Pre-K 

classroom. Alabama is in its third year of 

implementing its ambitious strategy to fully fund 

High-Quality Pre-K for the state’s four-year-old 

population. Funds from the Preschool 

Development Grant will accelerate the state’s 

ability to accomplish its ambitious goal. The 

Preschool Development Grant will build on 

Alabama’s progress to date through an 

ambitious and achievable plan by further 

developing and enhancing infrastructure and 

providing greater access to High-Quality Pre-K 

Programs to Eligible Children in High-Need 

Communities. 

With the support of the Preschool 

Development Grant, Alabama’s ambitious 

and achievable goal is to add 400 HighQuality Pre-K classrooms serving 7,200 

additional students over the course of the 

grant, extending access in High-Need 

Communities. This will expand the 

availability of High-Quality Pre-K education in 

Alabama from 9% of eligible children to 

26% by 2018. 

High Need Communities to be Served 

under Alabama’s Plan 

2 

Autauga Jefferson 

Blount Lee 

Calhoun Limestone 

Chilton Madison 

Coffee Mobile 

Dallas Montgomery 

Elmore Shelby 

Escambia Talladega 

Etowah Tallapoosa 

Henry Tuscaloosa 

Houston Walker 

Jackson 

This abstract was submitted as part of Alabama’s Preschool Development Grant Application. 

ss Pre-K; and are less 

likely to repeat a grade than students who did 

not participate in First Class Pre-K. Additionally, 

the benefits of First Class Pre-K were even 

more pronounced for children from low-income 

families. 

Reports from the Public Affairs Research 

Council of Alabama (PARCA) indicated that 

First Class Pre-K participation closed the 

achievement gap for lower income students by 

an average of twenty-five percent (25%) by 

grade three. According to the 2013 NIEER 

Yearbook, Alabama is the only state to