OberlinKids began in 2012 when Oberlin’s City Manager read a Newsweek article highlighting national concerns about kindergarten readiness and reached out to the superintendent of the Oberlin City School District to ask how Oberlin’s children were performing. The response was sobering: only about 30 percent of Oberlin’s kids “demonstrated” school readiness when starting kindergarten. Recognizing that early learning outcomes shape long-term academic success and overall well-being, a small group of community members began meeting informally to discuss how to improve opportunities for young children and their families. 

Calling themselves the Oberlin Community Partnership for Young Children, this early coalition brought together educators, families, city leaders, nonprofit partners, and early childhood advocates around a shared commitment to ensuring every child entered school healthy and prepared to succeed. The group embraced a collaborative approach, understanding that lasting change would require coordination across early care providers, schools, health and social service agencies, and the broader community.

In 2014, when the United Way of Greater Lorain County shifted its funding strategy to support Community Collaboratives focused on education, financial stability, and health, the Oberlin group was well-positioned to formalize its work. OberlinKids was established as one of the original fifteen community collaboratives funded under the Collective Impact Model, creating a structured framework for shared goals, measurable outcomes, and continuous improvement. We began offering free ASQ-3 Developmental Screening Questionnaires to children in Oberlin, ages 18 months to 5 years old, to identify where further support and services could benefit each child’s readiness skills. This marked a significant step forward, transforming a grassroots effort into a sustained, data-driven community initiative.  The 9 founding partner organizations included the City of Oberlin, Oberlin Early Childhood Center, Oberlin City School District, Lorain County Public Health, OhioGuidestone, Oberlin Community Services, United Way of Greater Lorain County, and Kendal Early Learning Center.

In 2018, we expanded our readiness assessment screening system to include all children in Oberlin from birth through age 5. We offered individual appointments for each child to complete the ASQ-3 in person with the OberlinKids Coordinator. We also added the ASQ-SE-2, the Social-emotional version of the tool, to better assess the social and behavioral development of young children and to collect more information, painting a clearer picture of each child served in our program. This allowed us to make more informed decisions and complete more appropriate referrals to early childhood mental health providers. This assessment tool helped caregivers better understand age-appropriate behaviors and OberlinKids make more targeted referrals for further evaluation and service requests, when needed.  In 2019, we streamlined our On Track for Kindergarten ASQ screening program to be available digitally on our website, so caregivers can complete it at any time of day, right from their computer, phone, or tablet.  This change allowed us to reach many more families, be more inclusive of working families' busy schedules, and expand services to the whole community. 

In 2017, OberlinKids began the Preschool Scholarship Fund with a $10,000 grant from the Ohio Children’s Foundation to ensure all children have equitable access to at least one year of high-quality preschool.  In 2020, access to tuition assistance was opened to any current member of OberlinKids for infant, toddler, or preschool childcare through one of our licensed partner high-quality early childhood programs. Priority remains for 3-5-year-old children in Oberlin who have never attended preschool, and for families who do not qualify for other financial assistance programs, such as the publicly funded child care subsidy or Ohio’s ECE Grant, but cannot otherwise afford preschool. As of 2026, we have provided over $75,000 in tuition assistance to Oberlin’s families. We receive grant funding from a variety of local foundations to continue supporting equitable access, with a priority on Oberlin families. 

Since that time, OberlinKids has grown into a trusted backbone organization for early childhood coordination in the community. In 2026, over 30 partner organizations, community members, parent representatives, and over 200 children and their families collaborated to make up the OberlinKids Community Collaborative. The collaborative works closely with families, early learning providers, Oberlin City Schools, and community partners to expand access to high-quality early childhood education, promote kindergarten readiness, and reduce disparities in opportunity. 

Since launching our streamlined online screening system in 2019, OberlinKids has provided over 2,000 ASQ-3 Developmental and ASQ-SE-2 Social-Emotional Screening Questionnaires to hundreds of local children, helping identify individual readiness, strengths, and potential intervention needs for our youngest community members.  Through free developmental screenings, play-based family programming, literacy initiatives, caregiver education, and professional development for early educators, OberlinKids strengthens the systems that support young children. 

Today, OberlinKids continues to operate through three focused Work Groups- Early Care and Education, Supports and Services, and Promotion and Outreach, and a Steering Committee made up of high-level decision-makers, ensuring that strategies are aligned, community voices are heard, and progress is measured. Rooted in collaboration and guided by data, OberlinKids remains committed to its founding purpose: bringing the community together to ensure that every child entering the Oberlin City School District is healthy, supported, and ready to learn.