Kindergarten Ready! is a TwinWest initiative designed to help address the statistic that approximately 50% of children who enter kindergarten are not fully prepared to learn. Research has shown that students who enter kindergarten ready to learn reduce the need for remedial education, typically translates to better K-12 educational performance, and is highly cost effective.

TwinWest is uniquely positioned to explore a previously unconsidered path to reaching this population - through their parents' place of employment. We believe that the business community is a stakeholder in this troubling statistic not only for the immediate benefit to their current employees, but also as conscientious employers committed to helping develop the highly skilled workers their businesses will require in the future.

TwinWest hosted a Kindergarten Ready! symposium on October 21, 2009, featuring keynote speakers Becky Roloff, YWCA of Minneapolis, and Fred Senn, Fallon Worldwide. Panelists were Larry Brauch, formerly of Liberty Diversified Industries, Jerald Stiele, Hopkins Auto Body, and Sandy Haddad, General Mills.

The purpose of this event was to inform business leaders of strategies they can implement in their businesses to support the pre-K development of their employees’ children.

Business Leader Toolkit

A business leader toolkit was distributed at the event. The toolkit contains these four resources for businesses:
Options for Employers
Parenting Resource Library
Parenting Web Sites
Early Childhood Education Partners

TwinWest would like to thank our event sponsor, the Qwest Foundation, and these table sponsors: Caring for Kids Initiative; Hopkins Public Schools; the Jewish Family and Childrens Service of Minneapolis; New Horizon Academy; Reources for Childcaring; Liberty Diversified International; St. David's Center for Child & Family Development; Wayzata Public Schools.

This event was the result of a collaboration of the following organizations:
All Saints Preschool
Caring for Kids Initiative
Dancercise Kids
Dan O'Mara Architects
Fallon Worldwide
Hopkins Public Schools
Jewish Family and Children's Services of Minneapolis
KMAS Consulting LLC
Liberty Diversified Industries
MnBEL
New Horizon Academy
Oxygen Plus, Inc.
Qwest Communications
Robbinsdale Area Public Schools
Ready4K
Resources for Childcaring, Inc.
St. David's Child Development & Family Services
United Way Twin Cities
Vanman Architects and Builders, Inc.
Wayzata Public Schools
Working Family Resource Center

For more informaiton on Kindgergarten Ready!, contact the TwinWest Chamber of Commerce at 763.450.2220.