Dane County announced plans to launch an education program addressing the area’s achievement gap that focuses on children before they begin kindergarten. 

The program, titled “Leopold Early Childhood Zone,” will be included in the county executive’s 2013 budget and is set to be introduced Oct. 1, according to a Dane County statement. The initiative is a joint effort with United Way of Dane County, a nonprofit fundraising organization, that hopes to address challenges children face in school.

Dane County Executive Joe Parisi said he reached out to United Way and the Madison Metropolitan School District last summer and offered the county’s services to help find a solution to the rising disparity in academic achievement between differing ethnicities. He added he wanted to put together a program at one of Dane County’s schools as a comprehensive approach to solving the problem.

“It’s important when we look at addressing challenges in our schools like poverty, we acknowledge the challenges in our schools reflect the challenges in our greater community,” Parisi said.

The Early Childhood Zone will function as an extension of the Early Child Initiative, a program that works with young, single parents and their children from pregnancy until the child is three years old to help parents stabilize education, Parisi said. The new program will facilitate education with families until the children reach the age of four, with an ultimate goal of enrolling the children in kindergarten.

United Way of Dane County spokesperson Sarah Listug said the majority of educational gaps in learning start before children enter kindergarten and continue to affect them the rest of their lives. She said the gaps get bigger and bigger as time goes on, and this program gives parents the tools to be effective teachers to their children at an early age.

“The county executive has put this as a priority,” Listug said. “The Early Childhood Zone is a way we could all work together to see the impact all these resources can make.”

Parisi said the program will also benefit parents by stabilizing their living situation and allowing them to find work if necessary. He added United Way and Dane County will serve as a general support system for families who are looking for an opportunity to be successful but still need assistance.

The Early Childhood Zone program is new to the state and, if it proves successful, may expand across Dane County, Listug said. There are currently 600 children eligible for the program. The pilot for the program will target 27 families with children enrolled in or living in the district of the Aldo Leopold Elementary School.

Parisi said there is a great diversity of children all over the spectrum in terms of income level in the Aldo Leopold school district, including a high number of families living below the poverty line in that area. 

Listug said the program is a $150,000 investment, with the county and United Way both providing $60,000 each. The program will draw the remaining $30,000 from federal aid.