community, especially local law enforcement. The partnership offers information to all local educational agencies through publications, training, and conferences as well as training in school safety and crisis-response planning provided by law enforcement and education professionals. For more information regarding safe schools and violence prevention, contact the Safe and Healthy Kids Program Office, at (916) 319-0920. Additional information is also available on the Safe Schools Web site at http://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/ss. 78
Child Care and Development Programs California has long been a leader in the nation in recognizing the value of quality child care and development programs for infants, toddlers, prekindergarten children, and school-age children. For more than 62 years, the California Department of Education (CDE) has developed and funded agencies throughout the state so that families can find safe, healthy, and educationally enriched environments for their children that are staffed by competent, caring adults. Funding is provided for services to low-income families, including welfare recipients, in licensed center-based programs; licensed family child care homes; and license-exempt settings, such as a family’s own home or the home of a relative or neighbor. The three major trends that have recently focused public attention on the value of children’s preschool education are (1) the unprecedented labor force participation of women with young children, which is creating a pressing demand for child care; (2) an emerging consensus among professionals and, to an even greater extent, among parents that young children should be provided with educational experiences; and (3) the accumulation of convincing evidence from research that young children are more capable learners than current practices reflect and that good educational experiences in the preschool years can have a positive impact on later school learning. In California, preschools, particularly publicly funded ones, have had a long, successful history. Today, well over half (62 percent) of all California’s young children attend preschool or Head Start programs prior to kindergarten. In August 2006, Governor Schwarzenegger signed Assembly Bill 172 creating a new prekindergarten and family literacy program. The new program will be offered to eligible children the year before kindergarten enrollment. Programs must be located within the attendance area of elementary schools in deciles 1 to 3, inclusive, based on the 2005 Academic Performance Index. The new prekindergarten and family literacy programs will provide age- and developmentally appropriate activities for children that are designed to facilitate their transition to kindergarten and opportunities for parents and legal guardians to work with their children on interactive literacy activities. The 2006 Budget Act includes funding for the new program as follows: $45 million for prekindergarten services, $5 million for literacy activities, and $5 million to provide full-day services. The new program is expected to serve over 12,000 children annually. The child care and development system administered by the CDE continues to be the largest, most culturally diverse, and most comprehensive in the nation, with funding at over $2.3 billion for fiscal year (FY) 2006-2007. The CDE maintains approximately 1,540 service contracts with approximately 788 public and private agencies supporting and providing services to 510,192 children (state FY 2004-05). Contractors include school districts, county offices of education, cities, local park and recreation districts, county welfare departments, other public entities, community-based organizations, and private agencies. 79