Although AACPL traditionally offered programs for children from birth to five years, they were not always offered with regularity and the system’s move toward generalists in the 1980s meant that it was difficult to keep staff trained on trends in early literacy. At the same time, political pressure to serve the needs of preschool children intensified. In 2011, Maryland was one of nine states that won a total of $500 million in a Race to the Top – Early Learning Challenge Grant to improve early childhood education. Project one on the RTTT list was to create Local Early Childhood Councils and to partner with the Anne E. Casey Foundation to develop the leadership curriculum, including the use of the Results-Based Accountability process, to assist local Councils as they examine local needs and develop their action agenda. AACPL was seen as a key player in building the early literacy skills of children in preparation for the transition from home to preschool. The focus of all the efforts was raising school readiness levels and developing an integrated system and a comprehensive approach through partnering to improve early childhood education. The opportunity for the library to engage stakeholders and position the library as a leader in early childhood education was clear. The challenge was how to change our service models to more effectively serve the early childhood population.

With a promise to elected officials that funding for increased hours for the library would also mean an increase in programs for the preschool population, Skip Auld, the Chief Executive Officer, shifted AACPL’s focus to early literacy and the Library needed a plan to make that decision a reality. In May of 2013, AACPL’s Programming & Outreach Coordinator began redefining service to children from birth to five years. An Early Literacy Task Force was convened to survey other systems, create sample schedules, figure out how many “Early Literacy Specialists” each library should have and the number of programs to be offered. The Library would no longer train all programming staff to present programs to the birth to five population, but would provide special training to Early Literacy Specialists, to fill this role. The recommendations in the Early Literacy Programming & Outreach Plan were approved by administrative staff in August. Over the next few months, 34 new positions were filled and from that group, a number of Early Literacy Specialists were chosen. Fortunately, a great number of current staff also decided to take on the new role. In the meantime, Saroj Ghoting, a noted Early Literacy Consultant, Trainer and Author was contracted to train staff on the use of Early Literacy Asides (a hallmark of the Every Child Ready to Read initiative) and both the Marketing and Outreach Departments and all branch staff focused their efforts on promoting the Early Literacy initiative. Because the Library also has a vibrant social media presence, the Virtual Services Manager played a major role in marketing. After months of training and promotion, the initiative debuted in March of 2014.

Although the initiative is in its infancy, we have already noted a dramatic increase in attendance figures. The number of programs offered has doubled and attendance more than doubled – 2,017 in March 2013 to 4,453 in March 2014. Although attendance is vitally important, a variety of tools, including both paper and online customer evaluation forms, will be used to measure success. Since Every Child Ready to Read is a parent education initiative, many of the questions to be asked relate to what skills the caregiver learned from the program which will further position the library as a valuable player in the education of our county’s preschool population. The ultimate goal is to incorporate Every Child Ready to Read into the Library’s early literacy programming and outreach for children and to offer workshops for local educators and parents. Another long term goal is to build upon our partnerships with schools and other agencies to improve school readiness and facilitate connections to community resources that support preschool education, empower parents to be their child’s most important teacher and work with schools to encourage and support caregivers in this role. The recent hiring of a bilingual Family Literacy Liaison is integral to the plan as raising school readiness levels among all county preschoolers involves reaching out to the Spanish speaking community. With the structural changes in order, we are in a much better position to make a difference and position ourselves as a leader in early childhood education.