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The Washington State Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) administers and operates a state-funded preschool program called the Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program (ECEAP). To inform systemwide improvements in the program, the department contracted with Education Northwest to conduct a qualitative study of nine sites across the state. The goal of the study was to identify unique or innovative practices and provide recommendations for scaling these practices across the state in alignment with five domains in the ECEAP Performance Standards: (1) family engagement and partnerships; (2) use of an evidence-based and culturally relevant curriculum; (3) fostering supportive adult-child interactions; (4) measuring and supporting child outcomes; and (5) professional development and training.

In 2023, Region 16 Comprehensive Center (R16CC) and Education Northwest partnered to extend the scope of previous work and address feedback on a first report from R16CC's WA Tribal Advisory Board. Specifically, they responded to a call for a stronger focus on regional efforts in the Pacific Northwest. This document presents themes that emerged from conversations with key education leaders and scholars, along with examples and resources created and carried out by Indigenous education leaders and scholars in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. The recommendations and resources in this report are intended to support educators and educational leaders across the region with strategies that could improve educational (and life) experiences for Native and non-Native students alike. This report is not an exhaustive list of all of the foundational elements of Indigenous education in the Pacific Northwest, but instead should be considered a summary of what has been learned from conversations with leaders in the region and a review of their published works.

Education Northwest conducted a landscape analysis to support the Region 16 Comprehensive Center in gathering information about promising practices and innovative strategies for recruiting and retaining Indigenous educators in teacher education programs (TEPs) and the workforce. This landscape analysis included a review of the literature; a review of enrollment and graduation data from TEPs across the country (publicly available from the U.S. Department of Education through Title II of the Higher Education Act); and interviews with scholars, experts, and program administrators who were conducting research around supporting Indigenous educators or were working in TEPs that enrolled or graduated high numbers of Indigenous students. The report is intended to provide insights and recommendations for Tribes, TEPs, schools, districts, regional entities, and state agencies with a focus on three research questions: (1) How can TEPs successfully recruit and retain Indigenous students? (2) How can schools and districts successfully recruit and retain Indigenous educators in the workforce? and (3) How can these findings inform ongoing and future work in Washington State?