DIAMOND EDUCATIONAL EXCELLENCE PARTNERSHIP

The Diamond Educational Excellence Partnership (DEEP) mobilizes community-based organizational partners around a research-informed theory of change designed to improve reading outcomes for children attending public schools in southeast San Diego. DEEP's initial focus is on ensuring that children -- whose schools are located in a cluster of low-income neighborhoods commonly referred to as the Diamond Community -- enter kindergarten prepared for success and complete third grade reading proficiently. DEEP accomplishes this ambitious mission by working with partners to build a continuum of educational and community supports for children (and their families) as they move along the early education pipeline from cradle through third-grade. Over the past six years, the DEEP partnership has grown to include over 50 partner organizations, including five elementary schools, committed to the shared vision of third-grade reading proficiency for community children. Although DEEP recently became a nonprofit in June 2017, it has been leading this work since 2012 under the fiscal sponsorship of the Jacobs Center for Neighborhood Innovation. DEEP's financials for its first fiscal year (July 2017 - June 2018) reflect that reality that DEEP only began operating financially independently in March 2018 with a small staff. The vast majority of its program expenses came due in July 2018, after the close of its fiscal year.