The ELC Nonprofit organization dedicated to ensuring early care and education for children in Miami-Dade and Monroe counties. Through a variety of affordable and innovative early eduaction and VPK programs, the ELC serves more than 50,000 children from birth to age 12 and their families. Founded in 2000, the ELC is among 31 similar organizations in the State of Florida established following the enactment of the School Readiness Act, which consolidated Florida's early learning services into one integrated program. The ELC's mission is to promote high-quality school readiness, VPK, and imporvement initiatives, thus increasing all children's chances of achieving future educational success. The ELC currently collects data for 12,000 preschool children in Miami-Dade and will share these for the proposed project.
The school district is the fourth largest district in the country and the largest school district in the state of Florida. During the 2013-14 school year M-DCPS operates 1,514 kindergarten classrooms in 268 schools, and 644 prekindergarten classrooms, in 214 schools. For this project, M-DCPS has identified the primary research questions of interest and has endorsed its strong commitment by jointly leading this.
The Children's Trust is an independent special district of local government established in 2002. Over the past 10 years, The Trust has invested in prevention programming for early childhood care and education, parenting, afterschool, and summer activities, health suites in schools, and youth services; built the capacity of local service providers to deliver evidence-based programs. As a Florida Children’s Services Council, The Trust is directed by Florida statute to collect statistical data and conduct research that will inform the public and policymakers about the needs of children in the county.
UM is the largest private, independent, international educational institution in the Southeast. Since it was founded in 1925, UM has attained national prominence in research as well as education, ranked 28th in the nation among academic recipients of federal research and training grants. The Psychology Department has the third largest number of undergraduate majors, the largest graduate program and the largest amount of external funding in the College of Arts and Sciences. The Psychology Department is housed within a modern high-tech facility with research space, wireless and high speed internet access, and state-of-the-art computer facilities.