Our Partners

Three centers with a common purpose.

Children’s House began in 1969, Montessori in 1988, and Kaleidoscope in 1991. Beginning in 2012, the lead educators from the three programs began conversations about how they could work together to improve their effectiveness and efficiency. These conversations evolved into the Early Childhood Education Initiative when the conversations expanded to include local funders, education experts and early childhood county representatives. This group examined national research and gathered local data to inform the development of common goals for access to the three state-certified programs and for the quality of their programs.

For the past five years, the partners have used a structured, transparent process for requesting funds provided by a consortium of private funders and, for the past three years, the Orcas Island Community Foundation as well. Funds go toward achieving two sets of goals: access -- at least 12 hours of access for all children to their choice of these three programs with additional hours for children whose developmental and/or educational needs require greater participation to achieve Kindergarten readiness; and, quality -- demonstrating high levels of instructional quality and student performance on research-based metrics.

In 2018, the ECEI Sustainability Task Force and its Steering Committee were formed to focus on the third goal in ECEI’s mission – sustainability defined as permanent access to quality early childhood education for all our children. The Steering Committee is actively pursuing funds from public entities (local, county and state), private foundations and community investors while advocating for local, county, state and federal policy changes to achieve this goal.