With 90% of the human brain developing before the age of 5, the early years of a child's life lay an important foundation for everything that follows. To support healthy development and improve school readiness for all children, the Alabama Department of Early Child Education (ADECE) created the First Class Pre-K program in 2006, putting research-based strategies into action to ensure that every four-year-old has free access to excellent early learning classrooms in their communities.
Key Problems
Disjointed systems caused broken data chains
Katrina Bowling, Ed.D., the Educations Systems Administrator at ADECE, says that attempting to integrate systems across the state agencies that administer the First Class Pre-K program. created some unexpected challenges. "In one database, a school might be called Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary, and in another, it might be abbreviated to MLKELEM." These data gaps made it extremely difficult to understand the supply and demand needs for classrooms in each region.
Paper registrations offered poor experiences for families and administrators
The registration process for First Class Pre-K students involved lengthy paper applications that were confusing for parents. And, because these forms were on paper, information about students and enrollment was inaccessible by administrators and teachers doing field work. Bowling says digitizing these documents was a cumbersome process and created silos for key information. "We'd have people in one office entering their region's registrations and another entering theirs, and never the two shall meet."
Professional development lacked a clear process
With quality of learning being a key requirement for the classrooms qualifying for First Class Pre-K program funding, ADECE requires teachers and assistant teachers to participate in professional development on a regular basis. "We needed a learning management system that would allow us to put instructors on professional development tracks and monitor their progress," she explained.
How BridgeCare helped ADECE modernize First Class Pre-K
To fix these key challenges and create a unified system of record for First Class Pre-K, Alabama selected BridgeCare following an extensive RFP process in 2021. Since completing their BridgeCare implementation, the program has seen giant leaps forward across all aspects of administration, and vast improvements to the experience for families and teachers.
With their new white-labeled First Class Pre-K portal, Alabama parents can view classrooms in their community, filtering by location and program type—even factoring travel time into their choice. Once families have selected their preferred classroom, they complete a simple application that guides them through the registration process.
The simplicity of the registration for parents also creates value for administrators. The digital-first registrations give the First Class Pre-K team a real-time view of supply and demand, and enables them to strategize how to allocate resources like funding and teachers to meet the needs of each community. With all data centralized in BridgeCare, the team can generate reports easily to get a quick snapshot of the program's health.
Close Partners in Success
A partnership mindset is critical for technology vendors entrusted with high-importance programs like First-Class Pre-K. Bowling says the dedication and flexibility of the team at BridgeCare has been one of the key benefits of their relationship. "BridgeCare is doing a fantastic job with the program from end-to-end, from student registrations all the way to teacher qualifications."