2/22/2008

By Simone Sebastian

The Columbus Dispatch

The year-old Columbus City Schools Education Foundation announced yesterday that its first grant will go to United Way of Central Ohio to improve preschool education in the city.

The foundation has awarded a $50,000 planning grant to the agency to design a program that would locate and track every 3- and 4-year-old child in the Columbus school district. It would assess the children’s readiness for kindergarten and refer them to appropriate preschool programs.

If the foundation approves the plan, it will grant the United Way up to $500,000 a year to operate the program.

“It is possible that the plan will point to gaps in the early-childhood education program, where we need to strengthen systems and find more providers of quality education,” said Lisa Courtice of the Columbus Foundation, where the education fund is housed. The expectation for the program “is huge, but it has the ability to be transformative.”

The United Way’s proposal was selected from four submitted for the grant, Courtice said. She said enough money has been raised to run the planning grant, but additional fundraising is needed for the program.

The United Way has until June to develop the program’s design. If approved, it would be launched this fall.

The education foundation was created in December 2006 with a $2 million matching grant promise from Limited Brands.