OSSS Turns 10: A Decade of Community-Led Change in Early Childhood

​This year marks a full decade since Oakland Starting Smart and Strong (OSSS) began its journey to build a more equitable early childhood system rooted in the voices and expertise of educators, families, and community leaders.

​Since 2015, OSSS has brought together educators, providers, systems leaders, and community leaders around a shared vision of success: that all children, families and early educators flourish in Oakland. Together, we’ve strengthened racial justice efforts, amplified early educator and provider voices, influenced local and state policy, built data-informed strategies, and fostered collaborative leadership across the city.

​Over the past decade, we’ve:
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• Co-created strategies that center racial equity and community wisdom
• Supported hundreds of early childhood educators through professional development, leadership opportunities and policy engagement
• Built a strong, consistent, action-oriented cross-sector collaborative table that has supported multiple early childhood partnerships
• Elevated family and provider perspectives in city, county, and state decision-making
• Improved the quality of early childhood settings, contributing to better outcomes for children 0-5
• Used data and research for systems change, shifting the dialogue from “are children ready for kindergarten” to “are systems ready for children?”

​These accomplishments belong to our community. Our progress is grounded in relationships, built through trust, shared leadership, and the deep commitment of our partners.

As we celebrate this milestone and all that we’ve accomplished together, we are also looking ahead, with the same vision and energy that brought us here, to keep growing and strengthening Oakland’s early childhood ecosystem. Over the coming year, we’ll be lifting up our learnings in a few key ways: 

• Scaling our Impact, a series of briefs that will highlight key lessons from our ten years. Check out our first brief on the Early Development Instrument here. 
• Formal evaluation reports from Engage R&D, independent evaluation firm.

Thank you to every collaborator, educator, advocate, and funder who has helped make the past ten years possible. We’re just getting started!

Stay connected and learn more at oaklandsmartandstrong.org.
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See photos and check out 10 things we’ve learned in 10 years of OSSS by visiting our Announcements page.