Tulsa will be tackling intergenerational poverty by focusing on the first years of a child's life.
Sophia Pappas was recently hired by the George Kaiser Family Foundation to head up implementation of the foundation’s Birth to Eight Strategy.
"It is a strategy to tackle intergenerational poverty focused on the first years of a child’s life. Everything we know about the brain science says that is our opportunity to make a significant difference that’s going to set children on a fundamentally different life path."
Pappas was behind the development of universal Pre-K in New York City, but made the jump to Tulsa to implement Birth to Eight.
"Every time the team would get together to think about best practices or where the hubs were in the country for really high quality education and a commitment to the early years, Tulsa was always top on the list, and Oklahoma as well, as far as pre-k, and that was definitely a draw for me."