A Stepping Stone Foundation

We seek to transform lives through quality two-generation education programs. Specifically; 1) prepare young children for success in school, 2) promote adult literacy and English language mastery 3) provide parents the support they need to fully understand and promote the developmental growth of their children. These three broad goals each have strands relating to academic progress, social interaction, understanding and practicing a variety of school-related routines and norms.

Our main program, LEAF (Literacy Elevates Arizona Families), is designed to have a long and potent influence on the families who enroll. Each family is expected to remain and participate fully in all aspects of the program throughout at least one public school year. The end goal with this robust experience is to change behaviors for a life-time.

Further, since we have been delivering this program for three decades, we have also developed a college scholarship program. It enables us to promise parents when their preschooler graduates high school, there will be college scholarship money waiting for them. It further emphasizes to the family, and is a concrete reminder for us to acknowledge, that support over time is needed to truly change the trajectory of inter-generational illiteracy-driven poverty.

1. Create, fund and facilitate an early childhood program (preschool) that is fully integrated with parent involvement and parent education. This program is situated in local communities with the collaboration of public school districts who provide the site free of charge. Children attend daily preschool (M-Th) of high quality taught by certified ECE lead teachers and experienced assistant teachers. Curriculum and professional development is intentional and integrated with the local school district. These preschool children will then attend their neighborhood school in kindergarten, usually on the same site as their preschool experience.

2. Create, fund and facilitate many-faceted parental supports. Parents of the enrolled preschoolers will take part in adult education (GED/HSE prep classes), English Classes, parenting classes, inter-generational learning experiences (from game day in the park to make-it and take-it reading workshops), home visiting (at least 7 home visits each year) and preschool classroom volunteering. These obligations are required and if the family falls below an 80% attendance rate, the family is put on probation to work through any barriers to full participation. To that end, there is free childcare onsite for younger siblings. If after working through the formal probation period, the family is still below 80% attendance, they are asked to leave the program. While families leaving is a rare occurrence, if such an event comes to pass, we do our best to place the family in another program such as Head Start.

3. Because so many of our enrolled families are recent immigrants, English language acquisition is a main strategy in the preschool and adult education portions of the program mentioned in 1 and 2 above. Preschool children's home language is honored and if possible used, but an intentional push toward English language mastery is ongoing for both the child and the parent. By the end of the program, we want the child to be speaking enough English to enter kindergarten ready to learn on a par with native English speakers and parents to be able to communicate with their child's teachers. To that end, the preschool curriculum and ESL classes for parents are very important components of the over-all program.

4. Consistent and targeted evaluation is an important strategy to us for continuous improvement. At the end of each year, in addition to academic and standardized testing and benchmarks, parents fill out two surveys which help us see how they rate our programs, what improvements they suggest and what they found most valuable.

5. Keep in contact with our families after they leave our program. This strategy has a two-fold purpose. A) We want to know how they are doing on a long-term basis. For example, what is the child's third-grade reading score? B) We have a post-secondary scholarship waiting for them when they graduate high school. All students who attended a LEAF program six months or more are eligible.

A Stepping Stone Foundation created LEAF in the fall of 1990 which was loosely based on both Head Start and Even Start and then added and adjusted components. LEAF was adjusted for local community and family needs--the core of which largely remains intact to this day. The intellectual capacity to continue this work not only is written for others to follow but held in the many years of experience our staff and program director.

In the fall of 2022, we expanded our impact by adding a third LEAF teaching site. We now have the capacity for a total of 55 families (about 140 individuals). We awarded 26 college scholarships to former preschoolers who graduated high school during last year and maintain a fund at the Arizona Community Foundation which is used for that sole purpose.

It costs A Stepping Stone Foundation about $155,000/year to put one complete LEAF program site (one preschool classroom with all the parent, English language and home visiting components) in place in collaboration with a public school district. Over the years, through grants, individual donations and other traditional fundraising activities such as our annual gala, A Stepping Stone Foundation raises its funds each year--and has done so for the past three decades.

Recognizing the importance of sustainability, ASSF has the goal of maintaining a twelve-month reserve to weather the ups and downs of charitable and institutional giving. A Finance and Budget Committee meets at least annually to examine investment strategies, gift acceptance policy and supports the Donors Bill of Rights. As of January 1, 2023, ASSF had a 12 month operating reserve set aside.

A donor database is cultivated and meticulously maintained as well as past grant proposals and school district contacts to be prepared for potential growth in our programmatic reach.

The board re-wrote its bylaws in 2018 and we now have best practices in place for a strong board moving forward which includes descriptions of board duties, term limits for members and officers as well as a well-defined relationship between the board and Executive Director.

General Observations:
A Stepping Stone Foundation (ASSF) finished well in the black for the 2021-2022 fiscal year. Average donation amounts were up slightly. The ASSF board has recruited new board members and made internal capacity and fundraising a priority.

LEAF:
In the school year 2021-2022, there were two LEAF sites, which had a total of 28 families enrolled in the program for six months or more. 73 unique individuals were served from August 1, 2021-May 31, 2022. This includes the preschoolers, at least one parent, younger siblings and in some cases older siblings and grandparents. It is important to note that COVID19 and COVID19 mitigation had a dramatic effect on enrollment. We held our enrollment to ten families per site so we could conform to CDC mitigation (less children, the wearing of masks, ability to soical distance). End of the year parents surveys indicated a high degree of satisfaction and that they would highly recommend this program to other families. From one parent (translated from Spanish), "It was the best experience regarding education, friendship and volunteering of my life. I found the answers to my questions about the education and development of my children." Parents also reported a high confidence that their children were ready for kindergarten.

Of all LEAF children at both the Westwood-Alhambra and Bret Tarver Isaac Preschool sites met their Teaching Strategies Gold benchmarks indicating they are ready for kindergarten! Over-all parent attendance at adult education, parenting classes, home visits and classroom volunteering averaged 92%.

In January of 2023, ASSF awarded 40 College Scholarships (includes Billiie Gannaway Memorial, Ivey Stepping Higher, William O. Smith Memorial and APS STEM scholarships) to 26 unique former preschoolers for a total of $44,000.00.