Ready for Kindergarten is an outreach campaign to encourage and support parents to register their children for kindergarten before school offices close for the summer. A big part of this work is connecting the people and organizations who work with families and their young children so we can get the message out far and wide. With the support of Health Share and FamilyCare, the campaign is now officially a tri-county effort, with Clackamas Early Learning Hub, Washington County Early Learning Hub, and the North Clackamas School District as key partners in the work.
What's different this year?
To inform this year’s campaign, we engaged families across the tri-county area to gather feedback on the language and images used in last year’s campaign. The input we received was not what we were expecting. Parents told us about the fear and anxiety they felt when they heard the word “register” due to recent threats and violence toward immigrant and refugee communities—particularly the executive order banning immigrants from several Muslim-majority countries. They also told us that they did not see their communities reflected in the images we were using in language-specific flyers.
So, for the 2017 Campaign:
- We eliminated the word “register” and replaced it with “sign-up.”
- We searched for stock images that were representative of Arabic, Spanish, Somali, Chuukese, Marshallese, Vietnamese, Chinese, Mixteco, and Russian speaking communities — and we brought images back to our families for vetting.
- We created new campaign language for social media that eliminated the word “register”: #SignUpByJune.
- We worked with the communications department at Multnomah County to do away with “register” for their social media.
- Most importantly, we slowed down our process to ensure that these materials were developed with care and sensitivity to our communities.
Outreach Materials
Be part of this effort! Print the following materials and talk to staff, co-workers, parents, and neighbors about the importance of signing up by June!
Newsletters and Social Media Toolkit
Posters Available (English)
Ready for Kindergarten by June 1- English
Ready for Kindergarten by June 1- Custom English
Parent Flyers (Arabic, Chuukese, Marshallese, Mixteco, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Somali, Spanish, Vietnamese)
Ready for Kindergarten by June 1- Arabic
Ready for Kindergarten by June 1- Chuukese
Ready for Kindergarten by June 1- Marshallese
Ready for Kindergarten by June 1- Mixteco
Ready for Kindergarten by June 1- Russian
Ready for Kindergarten by June 1- Simplified Chinese
Ready for Kindergarten by June 1- Somali
Ready for Kindergarten by June 1- Spanish
Ready for Kindergarten by June 1- Vietnamese
PSAs (created by our Early Learning Washington County team in partnership with Tualatin Valley Community Television)
Arabic
Chinese
English
Mixteco
Russian
Somali
Spanish
Vietnamese
Special thanks to the families who participated and gave us feedback, and to all our campaign partners across Multnomah, Washington and Clackamas counties. We’re looking forward to a successful campaign this year!