The Community Service Council of Greater Tulsa (CSC) (link) convenes a citizen-led Child Care Task Force charged with determining Tulsa’s future child care needs. The task force recommends establishing a resource and referral agency.

Tulsa Metro Chamber of Commerce (link) adopts a comprehensive policy supporting affordable, quality day care and child development programs.

Tulsa Metro Chamber adopts policy supporting high quality early childhood education experiences for three- and four-year-olds through public schools.

The Chamber, directed by its president, Martin Fate, Jr., convenes a task force on early childhood education. Mr. Fate indicates early childhood education will be a primary Chamber focus, as he and others are convinced that quality early learning would improve public education results, a key to assuring a future quality workforce. He appoints longtime Tulsa civic leader Leonard Eaton, president-elect of the Chamber, as task force chair.

The task force learns that almost one in four kindergarteners in Tulsa County – and one in three kindergarteners entering Tulsa Public Schools -- are not ready to start school. It also notes that this proportion of those "not ready" closely corresponds to the percentage of beginning ninth graders who do not graduate from high school.

The task force reviews extensive research findings, including those on Tulsa’s ECDC program, and hears from local and national experts, including Dr. Edward Ziglar of Yale University, national founder of Head Start (link). The task force recommends the creation of the Tulsa Children’s Coalition to establish a network of coordinated early childhood education through neighborhood elementary schools.

In the fall of 1990, Tulsa Public Schools endorses the Ziglar model, prior to joining the Children’s Coalition, along with the Tulsa Area United Way, Oklahoma Department of Human Services, Community Action Agency, Tulsa Technology Center, and the Community Service Council. This support, combined with funding from both the United Way and the Department of Human Services, helps initiate the Coalition in late 1991.

The Coalition organizes high quality before and after school care in several elementary schools in low-income neighborhoods, coordinates information to neighborhood parents on finding child care through Tulsa’s new Child Care Resource Center (CCRC), and promotes parent education through the new statewide Parents As Teachers Program (links: national, state, Tulsa). It also advocates for expanded voluntary public school four-year-old programs (link), and for collaboration among Head Start, child care, and the school programs for four-year-olds. It administers five pilot sites to demonstrate this collaborative approach.

1992

The model programs and advocacy of the Tulsa Children’s Coalition, the expanding work of Tulsa’s Child Care Resource Center, and increased awareness of research on early brain development, all lay the foundation by the later 90s for a major shift in funding, program development, and public policy priorities in Tulsa towards improving all aspects of early childhood development. This shift is led by the Community Service Council’s adopting a long-range strategy to focus its research, planning, community mobilization, and advocacy functions on improving early childhood development.

The Tulsa Metropolitan Human Services Commission (MHSC) (link), Tulsa’s health and human services policy and resource planning consortium, advocates for a state funded, research based child abuse prevention program. Children First (link), a research based nurse home visitation program, is planned; it begins in 1997.

"I Am Your Child: What Communities Can Do to Help Promote Children’s Healthy Development" (about the campaign; order materials) is launched by the Rob Reiner Foundation, Families and Work Institute. This public engagement effort, chaired by actor/social activist Rob Reiner, brings together a partnership of the media, funders, and national organizations. The campaign – which includes an ABC Television Special, a Newsweek magazine cover story, and a weeklong series on the Today Show and Good Morning America – brings national attention and stimulates state and local engagement efforts across the country.

"Rethinking the Brain: New Insights Into Early Development" is published by Families and Work Institute (link). Along with I Am Your Child, this report is a follow-up to Starting Points. It highlights opportunities to promote healthy development and reduce risks in the earliest years of life.

A Tulsa Community Summit on Early Childhood Development, on September 5, 1997, is convened by Tulsa Mayor Susan Savage and organized by the CSC, Metropolitan Human Services Commission (MHSC), and several other interested groups. The meeting is attended by 300 community and state leaders, and interested parties. Panelists include: Dr. Beverly Edwards - Teacher Trainer/Curriculum Coordinator, Tulsa Public Schools; Dr. William Geffen – Pediatrician; Senator Penny Williams - Oklahoma State Senate; Dr. Cathy Burden - Superintendent, Union Public Schools; Marty Clark - Head & Founder, Riverview Country Day School, and President, Oklahoma Association for the Education of Young Children; and Tom Gillert - Tulsa County District Judge. The Summit is conducted in conjunction with the national "I Am Your Child" Campaign.

The Metropolitan Human Services Commission (MHSC) selects school readiness as one of its top priorities.

The Tulsa Area United Way greatly increases its investment in early childhood development in several areas, focused on improving access to prenatal and preventive health care, and expanding quality child care.

At the request of the CSC and MHSC, proposed legislation known as The School Readiness Act is first introduced by Sen. Ted Fisher and Rep. Darrell Gilbert.

With the support of Tulsa Area United Way, the Child Care Resource Center launches the Success By 6® Quality Enhancement Initiative. Success By 6® (link) is a nation-wide initiative supported by Bank of America and administered by United Way of America. Success By 6 team members focus on improving program quality, assisting with NAEYC accreditation, and providing intensive on-site technical assistance.

The Children’s Coalition’s before and after school programs, and its First Start program, merge with CAPTC. This is the state’s initial First Start program, and helps Tulsa’s Head Start expand its services to infants and toddlers through additional state funding and a new Early Head Start grant.

The Family Health Coalition (link), in conjunction with the City-County Health Department and area clinics, begins implementing the federally funded Healthy Start initiative (link) to reduce infant mortality and improve birth outcomes.

Tulsans active in early childhood development advocate for increased opportunities for school districts to increase their four-year-old programs (link) and create new methods for state funding approaches to improve quality child care. Key legislators and state agency heads respond favorably, leading to significant growth in public preschool programs for four-year-olds, and new funding steps to reward higher quality care.