History
Early Childhood Matters
During the first few years of a child’s life, more than one million neural pathways are formed every second. This early and rapid brain development sets the foundation for a child’s path to healthy development and growth.
In recognition of the importance of this early development and the need for Louisiana’s students to have a strong foundation to ensure their success at all levels of Education, the Louisiana State Legislature passed the Early Childhood Education Act (Act 3) in 2012.
Act 3 overhauled virtually every aspect of the early care and education system in Louisiana, from the measurement of quality to the allocation of responsibilities among agencies overseeing early childhood programs and funding. It also created, for the first time, a role for local communities to play in early care and education through the development of Early Childhood Community Networks.
The New Orleans Early Education Network (NOEEN) was established to develop a comprehensive and integrated system for early care and education in Orleans Parish. NOEEN’s mission is to ensure an excellent start for every child in New Orleans, helping families realize their dreams for their children.
How Agenda for Children, NOLA-PS, and NOEEN Work Together
The Louisiana Department of Education defines the roles and responsibilities of the administering bodies that oversee early childhood education at the local parish level.
- Early Childhood Community Network – NOEEN is responsible for coordinating enrollment and serving as a point of contact between individual center programs and the Louisiana Department of Education for reporting purposes and coordinating funding requests. NOEEN also supports educators, conducting CLASS® observations, coaching, and providing professional development training.
- Lead Agency – The Lead Agency serves as the administrator of compliance and government functions and contracts, and facilitates coordinated leadership functions for the community network. It coordinates CLASS® observations, enrollment, funding requests, meetings, child count, and fiscal management. Currently, Agenda for Children and NOLA Public Schools co-lead on behalf of NOEEN.
- Ready Start Network – The Ready Start Network is the strategic arm of the lead agency and community network, focusing on capacity building, increasing access and quality, and innovation. It assesses local demand for early care and education and creates a blueprint to address gaps. It recruits stakeholders to expand the early childhood coalition, establishes local governance structures to facilitate collaborative decision-making, and implements fundraising strategies to meet demand.
In Orleans Parish, Agenda for Children, NOLA-PS, and NOEEN collaborate closely to meet the needs of the early childhood sector.
Coordinated Enrollment
New Orleans has a one-stop shop for enrolling in publicly funded early childhood programs. NOLA-PS is the lead, with oversight from the NOEEN Coordinated Enrollment Sub-committee and NOEEN Steering Committee. This makes it easier for families to apply for free early care and education.
Coordinated Observations
The quality of teacher-child interactions is measured through observation, enabling families to identify high-quality programs and helping teachers refine their practice. Agenda plays a leading role, with oversight from the NOEEN Steering Committee.
Coordinated Funding Requests
New Orleans coordinates a process for centers and schools to apply for state and local early childhood funding. This process is a shared responsibility for Agenda and NOLA-PS, with oversight from the NOEEN Steering Committee and ultimate decision-making by the Louisiana Department of Education.
Guidance and Leadership
The NOEEN Steering Committee provides strategic guidance and leadership for early childhood in New Orleans by collecting and analyzing data, listening intentionally to families, teachers and leaders, and convening stakeholders. The Steering Committee works to identify the sector’s most pressing needs, raise funds to meet those needs and offers related programming and initiatives.
Leading the Way
Read more about NOEEN’s groundbreaking history.
The Louisiana State Legislature passed the Early Childhood Education Act, also known as Act 3.
Orleans Parish became one of 13 communities to pilot the formation of a coalition of community ECE stakeholders to support and oversee the local early childhood community.
The pilot began with an eight-member Steering Committee that governed the work of 105 program partners, comprising 40 public schools, 12 non-public schools, 26 Early Head Start and Head Start-only centers, and 27 private child care centers.
In the first year, the network focused on professional development related to the new requirements, establishing benchmarks for quality, including the implementation of CLASS® observations, child assessments, and the Early Learning Development Standards (ELDS).
The network conducted the first Child Count to determine the number of publicly funded children served in NOEEN programs and piloted the use of CLASS® observations to measure quality.
The data showed that virtually all low-income four-year-olds were served in a publicly funded seat, while only an estimated 11% of low-income children ages 0-2 had access; thus establishing the need for additional early childhood programming and investments and laying the groundwork for conversations that led to the development of the City Seats program funded by the City of New Orleans.
Agenda for Children worked closely with the Recovery School District (RSD), and later NOLA Public Schools (NOLA-PS) to design and implement a universal application for early childhood education seats, giving parents a streamlined way to apply for early learning programs.
Agenda and the Recovery School District (and later, NOLA-PS) also work closely to design a unified process through which schools and centers could apply for public funding.
NOEEN’s Steering Committee wrote its first Strategic Plan, outlining a community vision to increase access to and quality of ECE services in Orleans Parish. Also, Agenda for Children and members of the NOEEN Steering Committee hired the first NOEEN Executive Director to staff NOEEN’s work.
Under the strategic leadership of the NOEEN Steering Committee, Agenda for Children, and the City of New Orleans, the City Seats program was piloted, providing free, high-quality early childhood education to qualifying families in Orleans Parish with children ages 0-3. It initially serves 50 children.
NOEEN became the first Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE) Ready Start Network (RSN), which is designed to increase access to high-quality early care and education at the local level.
NOLA-PS and Agenda became co-lead agencies of NOEEN, formally recognizing the significant roles that each partner plays in network activities and administration.
The New Orleans City Council allocated $3 million to expand the City Seats Program to 200 seats, with an additional 200 seats to be funded through state matching funds.
New Orleans citizens overwhelmingly voted in favor of a historic, 20-year Early Childhood Education Millage (property tax), which, as of 2023, ranks this as the third-largest local investment for publicly funded early care and education, and the only one specifically targeting children ages 0-3.
City Seats expanded from serving 400 children to 1,000 children for the 2023-2024 program year. The local investment enables NOEEN to draw down additional state matching funds, allowing it to serve an additional 800+ children aged 0-3.
In addition to funding free early childhood education, the New Orleans Early Childhood Education Millage also supports quality improvements and capacity building in the early learning sector. The network launched an award-winning teacher recruitment campaign, a Teacher Wage Enhancement program pilot, and a new ECE Facilities Grant for program development and expansion.
Today, NOEEN is comprised of all publicly-funded early childhood care and education providers in Orleans Parish—more than 170 public schools, non-public schools, Type III early learning centers, Early Head Start / Head Start centers, and family child care providers with academic approval— which serve more than 7,000 children from birth to age five.