Hernando is proud to be a certified Excel By 5 Community!

Excel By 5 is an innovative early childhood community certification process focusing on a community’s young children.  It emphasizes the important roles parents and early childhood educators play in the lives of children during their most formative years – birth to age 5.

Quality early learning experiences for all children are a key driver of school readiness, vital to improving high school graduation rates, and critical to a community’s economic success. Studies show that children entering kindergarten with the cognitive, social and emotional skills necessary for success are more likely to graduate high school. Our goal is to improve a child’s overall well-being by age five.  Hernando Excel by 5 sets forth a variety of standards involving public outreach in education, child care, safety and health through community workshops, events, and parent trainings.

Hernando Excel By 5 offers a free children’s health fair, parent resource guides, child care trainings, early literacy workshops, car seat safety checks, bicycle safety instruction, and promotes early literacy by offering free children’s books at Excel By 5 community wide events and oversees the Hernando Dolly Parton Imagination Library. 

The Hernando Excel By 5 Coalition consists of members from Baptist Memorial Hospital-DeSoto, Methodist Hospital Olive Branch, Desoto and Senatobia Children’s Clinics, DeSoto County Schools, First Regional Library,  Hernando Head Start, Hernando child care centers, Mississippi State Department of Health, other organizations.