Mayor Edwin M. Lee today announced the appointment of September Jarrett as the Director of the Office of Early Care and Education (OECE). Jarrett succeeds Barbara Cocodrilli Carlson, who served as the inaugural director of the Office, and recently relocated to New York City.

The OECE was created in 2012 to align and coordinate programs and funding streams from the Department of Children, Youth, and Their Families (DCYF), the San Francisco First Five Commission and the Human Services Agency (HSA) to serve children from birth to five years old in San Francisco. The goals of OECE are to improve access to early care and education, improve the workforce, and strengthen system capacity.

“San Francisco is one of few cities in the country to have an office dedicated to advancing high quality child care and early education,” said Mayor Lee. “I’m excited to work with September Jarrett, who has been a leader in our City on child care and early learning, to ensure that San Francisco continues to lead the country in our commitment to equity by ensuring opportunity for our youngest children and their families.”

As Director, Jarrett will help implement a recently adopted Citywide plan for early learning. Building on San Francisco’s leadership in early childhood, the plan seeks to:
• expand access to services;
• improve program quality and outcomes;
• increase compensation for educators; and
• make City’s early education system easier to navigate for parents and caregivers.
While continuing San Francisco’s commitment to universal preschool, the plan also focuses on improved early learning outcomes for African-American, Latino, immigrant, and other under-represented children.

Jarrett began her career working with homeless families in supportive and affordable housing. She was the founding director of the Child Care Facilities Fund, served as a Director of Policy and Planning for the Department of Children, Youth and Their Families, and was the human services coordinator for the HOPE SF public housing transformation initiative. Most recently, Jarrett served as Program Director of the Mimi and Peter Haas Fund, a local private family foundation focused on bringing the highest quality early learning services to San Francisco’s lowest income families and neighborhoods. Jarrett is an active community member, playing leadership roles in various nonprofit organizations, as well as serving terms on the San Francisco’s First Five Commission, and the Child Care Planning and Advisory Council.

Jarrett holds a Bachelor’s degree in Urban Studies from San Francisco State University, and a Master’s degree in Urban Policy and Management from the New School for Social Research in New York.

Her appointment is effective July 5, 2016.