About Us

FirstSchool is a PreK-3^rd grade initiative to promote public school efforts to become more responsive to the needs of an increasingly younger, more diverse population of children entering school.   Our framework for school improvement addresses schools’ ongoing struggles to produce equitable outcomes for African American, Latino and low-income students, the increased presence of pre-kindergartens within public schools, and the challenge of sustaining high instructional quality in every early childhood and elementary classroom.  FirstSchool was developed in collaboration with schools, communities, families, educators, the North Carolina Partnership for Children, the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, and the UNC School of Education.

FirstSchool has entered into a partnership with the North Carolina Department of Instruction’s Office of Early Learning to jointly plan implementation of FirstSchool features and a PreK-3^rd grade approach to education for young children across the state.   (Read full FPG/DPI press release.)

A grant from the WK Kellogg Foundation supports continuing collaboration with our partners in North Carolina, new partnerships in Michigan and nationwide outreach. (Read the full press release)

Currently, FirstSchool is being implemented in schools in Carteret, Edgecombe, Guilford and Alamance Counties in North Carolina and in the Pontiac, Lansing, and Kalkaska districts of Michigan. Six of the eight schools serve predominantly minority populations and all eight schools serve many children from low income homes. Aspects of the FirstSchool framework have been piloted in Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools, Durham Public Schools, Lexington City Schools, and Edgecombe County Schools. FirstSchool respects schools as individual communities that must rely on, utilize, and value their knowledge of the needs and challenges of the children and families they serve.