The Montgomery Education Foundation (MEF) advocates for the access and delivery of high quality Pre-K programs as an important step in raising student achievement and reducing dropouts, especially for children at risk. Intervention in the early years is significantly less costly and more likely to affect a child's path to graduation than attempting to intervene in the later years of a child's school career.

MEF supports the expansion of Alabama's high quality, voluntary First Class Pre-K program. MEF is working to support public, private and non-profit Pre-K programs that could expand their classroom presence while using the Alabama Pre-K First Class Model as the quality base for the program. The goal is to expand the availability of high quality pre-k to all children in Montgomery County.

In partnership with the Alabama Department of Early Childhood Education, MEF is conducting a pilot to assess potential expansion of First Class Pre-K classrooms in Montgomery County. Our goal is to help develop the capacity to serve 70% of all four year olds in either School Based rooms, Head Start rooms or Community Based rooms.

Currently MEF is focused on identifying and developing supports for Community Based classrooms to successfully achieve First Class quality and obtain First Class grants. Multiple forums have been conducted providing information and grant writing assistance as well as each site has been provided an on-site assessment. Continuing forums will include resources for financial planning, hiring practices, staff development, facilities management and more. Coaching and mentoring throughout the process is provided to each site.