Kindergarten readiness is an often debated education issue in Kentucky.

Only 48% of children were considered.

40 were considered kindergarten ready in 2023.

But whose responsibility is it to ensure children are prepared to go to school?

As our Emily Sisk reports.

The river cities in northern Kentucky say they're taking up the charge.

It's hard to argue that there's anything more important than early childhood.

Early literacy for kids birth age five.

While there may be nothing more important early childhood development is an area Kentucky struggles in.

Most children begin kindergarten at the age of five.

But less than half of Kentucky children are ready for kindergarten.

In the river cities of northern Kentucky.

The numbers are even lower, with an average readiness of 34%.

Newport City Commissioner Kendrick Den called the numbers abysmal and said there was lots of debate on social media over who to blame for the low score.

They wanted to blame NIST, which is a Newport Independent School district, for somehow not getting the kindergarten kid and kiddos ready.

That's really not a fair thing for them to own.

When less than a third of those students actually come to public preschool.

Really, there's a leadership gap with early learning as far as who really owns that before a child formally enters school through kindergarten.

That's where the Red ready Initiative comes into play.

The initiative focuses on prenatal through age five development.

It first started in Covington, but now the nonprofit Educate Enki is bringing the strategy to all of the river cities in an effort to improve kindergarten readiness.

The importance with Red ready is that the city leads it, and then the school district is a partner to that work.

Red ready uses a committee of parents, educators and community stakeholders like libraries and hospitals to discuss what each city needs.

Doctor Watson said this model of the city taking charge of early childhood development is rare, but the superintendent of Dayton Independent Schools said it's exactly what families need from a school district.

The earlier we can reach the parents, the better, because if we just sit around and wait for them to show up at our door in kindergarten, a lot of times those kids are behind the eight ball.

So what are some ideas for Red ready?

Doctor Watson said for one, making use of preexisting resources like the Dolly Parton Imagination Library, where children up to five years old can receive one free book in the mail every month.

For example, in Newport of our population, about 38% of our Newport's children birth through five are enrolled.

But our goal is to get to 50% by next year.

Doctor Watson said this is where community stakeholders like Saint Elizabeth Health Care can help out the initiative.

They can operationalize as seen Elizabeth when a baby is born that a family is enrolling in Dolly Parton Imagination Library before they ever leave the hospital.

And why is Northern Kentucky the right place for an initiative like raid ready?

Watson said it has to do with the size and proximity of the school districts.

We do have is a lot of small district, small city concentration in an urban area.

You have some poverty in those in those communities, and you have a lot of transient kids.

They bounce from Newport to Covington to Bellevue today.

Newport Independent School District has around 1400 students.

But Commissioner Repton said the city is battling a decreasing population of young families.

Anything we can do to make those families feel comfortable raising children in our community and encourage them to utilize the public system.

I think it benefits the city by retaining folks in our city, and it benefits the school system as well.

Dayton Independent Schools, by comparison, has around 800 students.

Superintendent Rick Wolf said the earlier families can receive educational resources, the better off the school district will be.

90% of our brain is developed by the age of five.

The earlier we can educate, families and parents, that's just going to pay dividends at the end.

What is the end goal to Doctor Watson?

It all comes back to that percentage of kindergarten readiness.

So 100% of our students need to be ready for school before they enter kindergarten.

And that's the goal.

And we're going to keep striving to meet that goal.

For Kentucky Edition I'm Emily says.

Thank you Emily.

Newport is kicking off its Red ready initiative with a fall festival next month.

Families will have the opportunity to sign up for free books and learn how to get more involved.