What We Do

At Tulsa Educare, teachers work with children – beginning in infancy and through preschool – and their parents to develop pre-literacy and early math skills such as letter and number recognition, problem solving, and counting. Equal emphasis is given to developing social-emotional skills: the ability to focus on a task, persistence, impulse control and cooperation with peers.

Central to Tulsa Educare’s mission is involving families in their children’s development. Activities and interactions are aimed at strengthening parents’ abilities to serve as champions for their child’s learning after they leave Educare and enter primary and secondary schools.

A unique component of the Tulsa Educare model is the practice of continuity of care. Each child stays with the same team of teachers from birth to age three. Children then move into a preschool classroom for students ages three to five with a different team of teachers. This continuity creates close bonds among children, teachers and parents, reinforcing the stable relationships essential to learning.

Tulsa Educare demands high standards. Class sizes are kept low to ensure individualized care. Infant-toddler classes serve eight children. Preschool classrooms serve up to 17 children. Each classroom has three adult child development specialists, including a lead teacher. Lead teachers hold bachelor degrees, and every four classrooms are supervised by master-degreed teachers who work as coaches inside the classrooms.

Full-time social workers and various consultants provide additional support to each family. Teachers and social workers regularly review and evaluate their success in helping children grow and learn, and adjust practices accordingly.

This approach is paying off. Research shows that children who spend more time in the Educare program emerge better prepared for kindergarten. Independent research by the FPG Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill finds that children who started Educare between birth and age two exceeded national averages on measures of school readiness. Those gains persisted even when controlling for risk factors such as maternal education, race and parents’ ages. Kindergartners who spent their early years at Educare arrived at elementary school ready to learn and on par with middle-income peers.

Educare children have more extensive vocabularies and are better able to recognize letters, numbers and colors than their peers. And children who experience Educare also develop strong social skills, including self-confidence, persistence and methods to manage frustration. All of these abilities are strong predictors of later success in academics – and in life. What’s more, early findings indicate the gains Educare children make hold as they move through elementary school.

In addition, compared to their peers:

• The majority of Educare parents remain involved in their child’s learning.


• About half of Educare graduates attend higher-performing institutions such as magnet, charter and gifted schools.


• Teachers report that more Educare parents participate in school activities, pick up their children’s progress reports and initiate conversations with teachers.