Council Update: Board approves re-imagining early childhood education system

Children’s Services Council of Palm Beach County’s board approved a two-year process to redesign the CSC-funded early childhood system of care. At CSC’s most recent council meeting, staff proposed long-term changes to its Quality Improvement System, called Strong Minds, over the next two years. Staff recommended repurposing funding and engaging the community, including child care providers and parents, to re-imagine Palm Beach County’s early care and education system to ensure all children are ready to learn when they enter kindergarten. Funding for child care and SEEK (professional development) scholarships will not be impacted by this change. 

In other business

Fetal Infant Mortality Review: The council approved a waiver of procurement so CSC can contract with the Florida Department of Health, Palm Beach County to administer and manage the Fetal Infant Mortality Review (FIMR) program, and meet the December 2022 deadline required by state law. FIMR is a community-based, action-oriented program designed to enhance the health and well-being of women and families by reviewing local individual cases of fetal and infant death. FIMR helps the community better understand the social, economic, health, educational, environmental and safety issues that may contribute to fetal and infant loss at a local level. That information then can be used to improve community resources for women and their families. The cost of funding for 2022-23 fiscal year will not exceed $250,000. CSC will receive $85,529 in state funding through the Healthy Start Coalition in support of this agreement.

Books for Older Students: CSC’s Communications Division distributed 1,800 books to media specialists from middle and high schools in Palm Beach County in a variety of ways. We offered books to all PBC School District middle and high schools, allowing media specialists to choose whether they wanted sets of 10 individual titles or 50 copies of a particular title. All books distributed were “bonus books” we received free from Scholastic Books as a result of past orders for elementary schools.