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CCDBG Stakeholder Input Session Transcript
The following is a text transcript of the November 1, 2016 CCDBG Topical Input Session Webinar
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This webinar is a topical input session to receive public and stakeholder input regarding development of the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) 2017–18 Quality Improvement Expenditure Plan.
0-3 minutes.
Facilitator: The acronym is Child care and development block grant (CCDBG). I want to extend a warm welcome and appreciation for our host sites. We have eight satellite locations throughout the state that are providing access for the field to provide input through this morning’s session. There was an allotted amount of time which is only an estimate. We will be modifying those times as we move through the morning. We do have a lot to cover and if I get through my overview more quickly we will start at that point. I want to call out our appreciation to our host sites.
We are using this opportunity for an input session because at this last year’s budget act there was specific language that directed the California Department of Education (CDE) to develop a new quality funding expenditure plan. We are required to submit that plan on February 11 to Department of Finance (DOF) and to the joint chairs of the legislative budget committee and then by March 1 we need to make sure it’s out and available for submission to update the state’s triennial state plan. There are opportunities for adjustments to that plan.
3-6 minutes.
We are going for technical assistance as we don’t see a slide and I imagine you don’t’ see a slide. While we are going that I am going to continue about what those requirements are. Well the requirement is that the new quality expenditure plan shall prioritize activities that support the Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS). It is the intent of the legislature that to the greatest extent possible the state use funding from the state CCDBG quality allocation to support the QRIS. So that is one part, it is not the part we will be discussing today. It also states that the new quality expenditure plan shall maintain funding for resource and referral (R&R) agencies, local child care planning councils (LPCs), and licensing enforcement. The new quality expenditure plan shall comply with the Federal CCDBG Act 2014. The draft on or before February 1, 2017, the CDE shall provide a draft of the new quality expenditure plan to the DOF and the chairperson of the joint legislative budget committee for review and comment. So we have an opportunity to see in advance, we have one month before we release that proposed plan. I apologize as I still don’t’ have the slide. This new slide would have been nice to share. You don’t’ see it and I can’t seem to get that to come forward. I was just trying to see if. Ok. Thank you for your patience we have someone coming in to fix it.
Ok, we are going to go to mute now while we have some assistance here.
6-9 minutes.
We’re back up and I think you can see that slide and if you need to respond to the chat room to confirm that you are welcome to do that. This is the graph of the current CDE Quality Improvement Budget for the current 2016-17. I recognize that depending on the size of your room and what your display is… much of it is grouped into sections of the state plan. The first wedge which is the LPC is for the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) coordination. Then the next one under ensuring health and safety. The second one is the consumer and provider education and that’s our funding to R&R agencies and you can see that’s over a quarter of the budget. Then comes ensuring the health and safety of our children that’s 10% that goes to community care and licensing. Then go into section 6 of the state plan which is about training and professional development within this section we pull out a few things that are separate, but for the most part most of the training and technical assistance which I expect to hear comments on today will be in section 7.2 which is the QRIS. I know that could be in both places but we are demonstrating the quality rating dollar are support training professional and development within the QRIS. So that speaks to that and so I look at some of the largest sections there with the green one on the early learning guidelines as and this currently has a large portion of one time funding that we have this year for resource development, normally that is not such a big wedge. It would be a little smaller.
9-12 minutes.
Then we have work that is going towards school readiness for CA Preschool Instructional Network (CPIN) and Program for Infant Toddler Care (PITC), Desired Results Developmental Profile (DRDP) the Inclusion and behavioral consultation network and several other things and it moves from more than a half of what we are spending essentially towards professional development, and then the last small wedge is actually evaluation. This is another way to look at, I don’t’ know if it helps at all, but it groups them again into the state plan sections. I have the percent of funding on the right hand side and then also within the section of the state plan I have what that collective percentage is. So that you can see them and how they are grouped together. Also reminding that every site should be on mute. If you do have a question about those acronyms that were used in there we can address that through the chat function. So you have to know what we are currently spending to know how you would like to modify more or eliminate and all of those kinds of things and that was just the starting point.
We have actually . . . we have a Q&A section and a chat section. They are very similar. My apologies I do see that it says Q&A in your box and I’m used to somewhere it has chat. My apologies. Q&A section is where you are submitting your questions. What I am happy to say is that I had allotted time for the overview and this gives us the opportunity to actually gain 20 minutes into our input session and that’s a plus for us. So now I’m going to go through what our process for input is. On the screen you can see the order of input and you are going to get used to that through these next several hours because in each instance when you go to a topic we are going to go in this alphabetical order: Kings, Marin, Merced, Sacramento, San Diego, San Mateo, Santa Barbara and Shasta. We are going to cycle through that every time. Our hosts will be communicating whether if a given site has no speaker, then I’m going to use this example.
12-15 minutes.
Maybe we might jump from Kings to Merced. You might say no we missed someone. So if we missed someone we missed them on purpose. If you have a guest to your site who would like to speak about a topic we have already moved on to we will . . . you communicate that to our systems here today and we will work on this through this entire morning modifying times so we can accommodate everyone who intends to present information. Now I am going to pause for any other point of clarification before we proceed. Now I recognize we did have technical assistance with the PowerPoint when I started. We will be making this available, we were going through the ADA accessibility, because I have a chart in there, it has taken us a bit of time to get that up. We will have that, we think it will be available by the end of the day. And so, we will make that on our Web site and be publically available. We can also make that a point to make it available to our hosts and then if they want in turn to send that out to you directly they are certainly welcome to do that because we won’t have your information. We were hoping to get it done before we started this morning before we started an unfortunately we were able to get that completed but that was a good clarifying question.
Ok, so now you can see from the announcement we have several topics that we felt met our budget act requirement of addressing the requirement of the CCD Block Act. You will see some that some of these things are specifically identified for expenditures for the quality improvement dollars. Some of them are not specifically identified for quality improvement dollars, but we think there might be an opportunity to do so. Ok, and that first topic is Parental Complaints. The state is required to maintain a record of substantiated parental complaints and makes available to the public upon request. Our sister agency, the CA Department of Social Services (CDSS), Community Care Licensing (CCL) actually accomplishes that for its licensed providers.
15-18 minutes.
But in term of the child care and development act there are providers that are funded with those federal funds that are not subject to licensure. Those are programs that are exempt from licensure. Which could be centers or could be family friend and neighbor. So I’m taking input on whether this might be something you would think that we would use our dollars to address. Ok, does not appear that we have input on this section on parental complaints. Remember if you do come up later, we can move forward to that. I’m reminding our hosts that when we move to this next one, we need to have an idea on how many people want to present.
Ok moving onto the second topic which is Consumer Education. Well, the CCDBG Act as well as the newly released regulations provide a good deal of specificity to states about the breadth of what the federal expectations is in terms of consumer education. You can see that where the consumer education needs to identify the availability, notice not just to child care but to subsidized child care so that means the consumer education has to understand the breadth of who’s providing or willing to provide subsidized child care. The quality of providers since CA has now a more robust utilization of a QRIS it would mean that consumer education needs to reflect the quality of the providers to the extent to which we know that. The third one is to have information on a state website regarding the licensing process, background checks, monitoring and inspections, and offenses that prevent serving as a child care provider. We would see that a good portion of that, if not all of that, might be on the state website. That again our sister agency, CDSS, CCL, would be responsible for and I must say that in terms of responding to our federal child care and development Block Act that we do collaborate persistently and consistently with CDSS in responding to the federal requirements.
18-21 minutes.
Of the other things, other programs for families that receive financial assistance the act is very prescriptive and spelled out what that wave of assistance, program are, information about special education, individuals with disability act part B and part C and information on the research and best practices on children’s development, state policies regarding social-emotional behavior health of children and developmental screening resources and services. So now let’s see what we have in our, the effect to which we need to make any modification on what input. So from our eight sites we do not have any site having speakers on that topic so it looks like we are moving right along. The next topic is about Training and Professional Learning (PL). Once again the federal law is far more explicit than it has been in any previous iteration of the law. It says specifically that the training and professional development needs to be conducted on an on-going basis, not just once and it’s completed. I can hear a voice, remind you to be muted at your location and we’re collecting names and that’s how you respond to that. When we read past that comma, because number 1 actually has something that has not been in the law before. It requires that we provide for progression of PL, and so we can think of that as a framework, a Pathway, which may include postsecondary education which reflects current research and best practices and that improves the quality of, and stability within, the child care workforce. This progression or Pathway, is to be developed in consultation with the, and I didn’t spell that out, but that’s the State Advisory Council (SAC) and may engage training providers so that this progression is done in an aligned fashion.
21-24 minutes.
We would look at that because it talks about postsecondary as the engagement of both our professional development community based trainers, our state funded trainers, as well as our institutions of higher education working on a cohesive professional development direction. It also . . . this training needs to incorporate knowledge and application of the state’s Early Learning Guidelines (ELG). And for our state that means our Foundations, health and safety standards, and once again notice this was back in consumer education, social-emotional behavior intervention models that what this training PL that it be accessible to providers and supported through Indian tribes and organizations receiving the Child Care and Development Fund (CDDF) and to the extent practical be appropriate for different age groups. Now I’ll remind you that the CDDF provides services to children to children and eligible families from birth to age 13 so birth through 12, English learners, children with disabilities, and Native American. And the sixth point is that the state requires a specific number of training hours annually. There is no, our state currently does not have, this might also be an opportunity for you to provide a suggested number of training hours.
Ok, now that I’ve gone through that, I’m going to start with each of our sites, and so I’m going to pause just to check so that I think, we are going to work on the amount of time each site has. Ok I’m going to come back on while we are working on time and maybe I should have done a better job at the beginning to clarify what is happening. There is, I have no draft budget for 17-18 because we are using the input sessions to understand how you are making recommendations for how we should expend our dollars. I have done an earlier overview with how the funds are currently being used. And I am going to take a moment because we have all this time together.
24-27 minutes.
I am going to use this slide. I want to point out that this slide is this year. There are a couple of factors that will influence the 17-18 budget. One is that this slide includes some one time funding that will not continue into next year, kind of is the definition as to what one time funding is. So I’m going to do a little step back. Traditionally, the CCDF had what were called earmarks or targeted funds for the R&R agencies and school aged targeted funds, it had an infant/toddler targeted fund and it had a third quality targeted fund. Those set of funds along with 4% of the CCDF, the state match, and the maintenance of effort, 4% of that amount and the targeted funds were what went into the quality budget. Each year if there was any unspent funds from the targeted funds, because those can only be spent on those three designated purposes, there would be one time funding. In the reauthorization, their reauthorization set up a cycle for changing the 4% set aside to a 7% set aside for two years. So the first two years of the reauthorization and then will fall into 8% for the next two years and then will finally reach a plateau of 9% from that point forward. Also starting this Federal fiscal year, starting in October, starting a set aside of 3% for Infant/Toddler quality services. That Infant/Toddler amount is, that 3% is greater than the previous infant/toddler targeted funds. This budget reflects some of that increase in the infant/toddler set aside. There will be, because it is Federal fiscal year, and we work on a State fiscal year, there is this ¼, ¾, so we will have a little adjustment in the infant/toddler coming into the 17-18 year and the one time funds will disappear. So there, we will be looking at, and for most of the infant/toddler funds, for the most part, we tried to employ them into one time uses this year.
27-30 minutes.
FACILITATOR: Some of that got into ongoing funding but for the most part one time funding so that we could have this engagement of stakeholders with how you would want those funds to be used. So you do not see a proposed budget to respond to. The first ones who will see that will be the DOF and the chairperson of the Joint Legislative Budget Committee or chairpersons I’m sorry I guess I have that incorrect. So they are the first ones who will see a draft and then it becomes public as I said on the March 1 st
date. So you are really providing guidance to the department on how we need to be using these funds. Ok, so I’m going to remind you that you had the opportunity to hear about parental complaints and consumer education. I am going to pause to see if we have commenters.
Hi, this is Nirmala Dillman (N), we have speakers and I have been sending messages through the chat, the Webinar but have not been getting responses and maybe seems you’re not receiving. Who should be the recipient of the message when we send the message?
FACILITATOR: Ok it should go into the chat box to let us know, excuse me, the Q&A box. They are fielding those questions and collating them for me so when I call on the sites I will say you have three speakers or you have however many. So you are sending that into the box?
N: Box yes.
FACILITATOR: The Q&A box, and I think what you are saying is that you are doing that but you are not receiving like an acknowledgement that message was received?
N: Yes because when you mention for example a topic and you mention there are no speakers about it we had just sent the name of the person. So…
FACILITATOR: So when you are sending that you need to let me know. Did it include the topic, like topic 2, and you have to write that thing out. Ok so I am going to pause again and see if we have overlooked input for parental complaints or consumer education. So we are pausing.
N: Let me. . . Another question. The Q&A box is different from the chat box?
Correct, we don’t have the chat box enabled. We just have the Q&A box enabled.
N: Ok, thank you, thank you
FACILITATOR: In the meanwhile while we are on, while we are checking to see which speakers there are for the topics, if you could put yourself on mute that would be appreciated, thank you.
30-33 minutes.
FACILITATOR: Ok, I’m calling on Marin County Office of Education (COE) for a commenter on parental complaints. So Marin unmute please.
INPUT: Marin, Heather Lang (H): PARENTAL COMPLAINTS
(H): Hi, yes, good morning this is Heather Lang with Bananas at the Marin County Office of input session, and I just wanted to reiterate the importance of parental complaints our R&R agencies statewide we rely so much on parents being able to make their complaints about licensed programs and there’s that system in place because then licensing investigates the complaints that are related to health and safety nature. I’d like that for that to be available for license exempt programs and I don’t know who would investigate them then. But my real concern is about how that system would work in place for family, friends, and neighbors’ caregivers. While I really want to support that pool of the Kids and Kin caregivers because that’s something we’ve always been safe for challenges and reaching out to those caregivers on some of the training and support side, but I just have questions about how it would be organized for parents to make complaints around family, friend, and neighbor caregivers? And what system would that be and how that would be funded?
Facilitator: So I am taking input and we will forward that also to our Policy office, our CDSS, and our department, and actually financial department.
33-36 minutes.
Facilitator: We are still looking on how the state of CA wants to address the monitoring of licensed exempt programs that center or family child care home (FCCH) or family, friend, and neighbor and when we resolve that I think it might be clear how we would approach the resolution of investigation of complaints for licensed-exempt providers as the department, as the lead agency, on CCDBG it is our the department’s responsibility and so we are hoping you might have a suggestion for us and so I appreciate the comment.
Facilitator: Ok, now and I believe the Consumer Education one and in that case, on topic two, consumer education, I am going to Sacramento County office of Ed (SCOE) please. At SCOE do we have a general comment for the first topic, or the second one, and you’ll have to take yourself off mute. Ok, then we are going to move on to Consumer Education, we will have Heather from Marin. Ok, starting with Marin then.
INPUT: Marin, Heather Lang (H): CONSUMER EDUCATION
(H): Yes hi, this is Heather again, I’m just wanting to reiterate that child care R&R agencies in the state see themselves as the agencies that are presenting these kinds of consumer education information to parents and child care providers that we want to continue doing that and we want to continue getting support on that and we are also engaged in a state-wide effort with the CA child care resource and referral network (CCRRN) on developing a very exciting new statewide database which will create consistency for parents if one parent leaves and is going to move to Los Angeles that mom can expect the same kind of standard of service of getting that child care referral and counseling and support from a staff person so that that standard is being really examined of statewide and will translate to this statewide database.
Facilitator: Thank you. Ok. Anyone else for consumer education. Ok we don’t see anyone else. We are going to move on to training and professional development and we have Samantha from Merced.
36-39 minutes.
INPUT: Merced, Samantha Thompson (S): Training and Professional Learning (PL)-Item 6
(S): Hello, I just wanted to comment that with regard to item 6 on the slide requiring a specific number of training hours annually that it be in alignment with the QRIS framework guidelines of whatever that might be. So, if there is a requirement for 21 hours of annual professional development that that be in alignment.
Facilitator: Thank you Samantha. And next we have Lucia from San Diego.
INPUT: San Diego, Lucia Garay (L): Training and Professional Learning (PL)-Item 6
(L): Good Morning. So we have just a comment on the Professional learning on number six requiring a specific number of training hours annually. We wanted to make sure that it’s not just the number of training hours annually but that there be some definition that those hours go beyond the mandated hours that is required for safety, that some of the contents be aligned to the development of the age being served, screening and referral, social-emotional development and that there are some qualifiers to those hours.
Facilitator: Thank you and I will also refer you to number three which does say this it does incorporate knowledge and application of state’s early learning guidelines, dose have health and safety, and social-emotional. So you are actually speaking to number three and number six.
(L): That’s correct, thank you, and we also have another comment from CCIP program that the PITC program has been very successful at being the first contact for family child care providers and getting them started on the pathway for professional development.
Facilitator: and for the record, because this is, oh, that is the California inclusion and behavior and consultation network. I wanted to clarify, so the child care initiative. The CCIP one. I wanted to clarify that I got that correct.
(L): Yes, we wanted to make sure that the R&R to continue to play that important role in the support for FCC.
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39-42 minutes.
Facilitator: Thank you. Ok, thank you I am going to next block which is to the extent to which we can address the stage required to make sure that providers providing care to subsidized families have training on health and safety topics and there’s a defined set of topics that are included which are listed there on your screen: the Prevention and control of infectious diseases, prevention of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), administration of medication, prevention and response to emergencies due to food and allergic reactions, building and physical premises safety, prevention of shaken baby syndrome and abusive head trauma, emergency preparedness and response planning, handling and storage of hazardous materials, precautions in transporting children, and pediatric First aid and Cardio pulmonary resuscitation (CPR). Since we are not getting input on that I am assuming we do have required requirements in place for our licensed providers and will point out to our listeners that within the CCDBG law it also requires health and safety training for any provider who is serving subsidized families with an exception of family members.
I’m going to the next one which is on Early Learning Guidelines. The act requires that you, that the state. Oh let’s go back, we have one speaker on Health and Safety from San Diego. OK. Go ahead San Diego.
INPUT: San Diego (S): Health and Safety
(S): Ok we have one comment. I just wanted to comment that R&R are also in a really good position to help support this, this particular training not all providers or those that will be required will have access to the online versions that I’m hearing here. Just keep in mind that R&Rs localized in all the counties and we can also provide that kind of training 1:1 with our own trained staff in all of the different counties. We just wanted to make sure you were aware of that.
42-45 minutes.
Facilitator: Thank you and I will also allow our listeners to recognize that we are also providing funding for a network of R&R trainers on preventive health trainings those, that’s currently under way so that there will be actual funding for a padre of regional trainers on health and safety, preventive health practices to make sure that there is ample access to training.
(S): We have one follow up question on this. Are these Health and Safety topics going to be required where the CCDBG Block grant money is utilized using vouchers or are these just going to be recommended for those professional development hours?
Facilitator: The, so going to the act, and also the regulations. The regulations say specifically that prior to providing services to a subsidized, to a child, to subsidized, to children of subsidized families, the provider needs to have these, this array, of health and safety training. Or if it’s not prior it can be done during a period of orientation. So that would be true for providers if there are new staff who come on to a program where there is obviously more than one staff you could have an orientation period for small FCCHs or for Family, friend, and neighbor when you are talking about one person, while although some small FCCHs could have other people on board with them, those are pre-service. And so that’s the requirement of the law, that’s the federal law, the state still would have to take action about when any of this would happen. Currently in state law the requirement is for the sixteen hours of health and safety training so we are covered for our licensed providers. We have, we have, no state statutory authority for requiring the health and safety training pre service or during an orientation period for license exempt centers or family, friend, and Neighbor. So that’s an outstanding issue that would be resolved, so that is separate from the training itself. Good training clarification questions. Thank you, next we have Heather from Marin.
45-48 minutes.
INPUT: Marin, Heather Lang (H): Health and Safety
(H): Hi, yes I wanted to also follow up with the requirement of the Health and Safety training for any provider caring for family with a subsidy, understand it, with the exception of family members, but for those friends and neighbors that that will now be a requirement, that is going to blow things up for parents. For example a parent who works graveyard shift can only access usually a family or a neighbor, and those are the sites that are only reimbursed at like $2/hour. So it is going to be a barrier for them to pay for the health and safety class for the training, to put that out.
Facilitator: Ok, I need to clarify, this is an input session on what we’re doing here. That’s moving into state policy and practice about the requirements, and that as I mentioned earlier, would take a state statutory change. I’m pointing out what are in the law and what we could possibly use our funding for. With the federal law do not have authorizing state law for that at this point to have any stipulation on a requirement for providers other than licensed providers which have the requirement for 16 hours. And I think, ok, I’ll move on. Our next speaker is from San Diego. On the same Health and Safety? I believe so, Debbie from San Diego? Did we get Debbie’s already?
(H): You got that one already. Thank you.
Facilitator: Ok, thank you, ok. I’m jumping to number five Early Learning Guidelines. The Early Learning Guidelines, so for us when you see that, or used that in several language, that means in our state those are our state child care and development foundations, for the infant/toddler learning and development foundations or the preschool learning foundations. They, we need to maintain them, they need to be researched based, implemented in consultation with the Department of Education and the State Advisory Council, and updated as determined by the state. Ok this is the opportunity to hear whether there is, the state, any need to update those early learning guidelines. Ok and I actually think I know how recently those were done. I can see why there’s not really a comment on that section.
Moving to the next one. Within the act there is a requirement for Business Technical Assistance. So we have the professional development and technical assistance so it says specifically we are to develop and implement strategies to strengthen business practices of child care providers to expand the supply and improve the quality of child care services. Let’s see if we have any to field.
48-51 minutes.
Facilitator: Ok, I’m not seeing that we have any, I will actually provide you with an update. In this current cycle and that budget that I presented to you earlier. We do have a contract that is working on developing business practices modules for family child care providers. Looking to see if there is any other concern from the field about addressing this concern pointed out in the CCDBG. And I think we might be, collecting some sites, let me pause for a moment. So the, I can pull out the regulations, but when it talks about strengthened business practices, what the, our Federal, administration for children department, federal department of health and human services administration for children and families office of Child Care, what they were hearing was that often times we have persons that have provided professional development about how connected them to children’s learning development but that the provider community itself might need some support in say improving their business acumen and how to support, possibly how to set their rates, how to how to support themselves, how to make it a viable business. When we were looking at this issue, we recognize that there is a larger turnover in licenses with family child care homes, more so than the turnover in center licenses so our initial focus is on doing something to address our FCCHs it does say specifically business practices.
51-54 minutes.
Facilitator: We might look at how any information that might come out of say a program administrative scale (PAS) or a business administration scale (BAS) and what those might say to the operating of that child care business. So maybe some of our stakeholders who are listening who have provided coaching or onsite technical assistance might have something to say about the extent to which the providers are supported in just maintaining their business. Ok, I am moving to the next area that I pulled up as a possible one which is there are several sections that call out and provide a focus on serving homeless children and their families. And actually, so specifically we are to provide training and technical assistance on identifying and serving homeless children and their families and also specific outreach to homeless families to ensure that they have access to subsidized child care. To this extent, back in that pie chart, we do have, we are currently engaged in a best practices examination, there was actually just released, a federal joint policy statement about serving homeless children. So it will draw on the federal resources for and those resources for serving children who are homeless. For a context for you. California has long had a serving homeless children as one of the eligibility factors for care. We’ve actually done that with state funding and it’s only within this new federal reauthorization that homelessness became an eligibility category for services. So we might not see this as so different because we’ve already been serving these children for a number of our state and territories, the service population was limited to low income working families or those who are engaged in a training or technical assistance, training program, or work education or work so that’s why this is pointed out in this new act. We do have input from Lucia in San Diego. Lucia, go ahead.
54-57 minutes.
INPUT: San Diego, Lucia Garay (L) Homeless Children
(L): Right so I have a point of clarification on the homeless training. Currently under title V regulations, we are still required to take income verification. So although this is up here as training and technical assistance and specific outreach to families, I think we need to kind of understand what is the proposed change to our current programming and outreach and eligibility determination when speaking of regulation prior to having any opinion on what training or outreach would look like? We don’t want to outreach and then come to our desk and find out that without their income verification, which they might have lost in the process of losing their home, their child would not be able to be enrolled.
Facilitator: And, and I’m not going to address that and we will carry that forward again to our policy offices and our field services. Ok, I’m moving to our next topic. Remember that the direction from the budget act was that we maintain funding to our child care resource and referral systems. This is not like an issue that there will be funding the child care resource and referral program. I only pointed out that this is one of the things that we do fund with our quality, with our quality dollars and these are the, they have a state set of requirements that are in state law. These are the requirements under the federal law. So you can see how specific the requirements are and I’m just reading them off so we that have them on record.
So yes, as mentioned by one of our speakers earlier, the child care and referral programs are, their responsibility is to provide consumer education. The Department of education recognizes that and supports that activity, it’s also pointed out as it fits in state law. To work with families receiving assistance to ensure families are enrolling in most appropriate child care setting and that those are of high quality. That would also tie into what our speaker had said earlier. That the R&R’s collect data and provide information on the coordination of services, including special education, the 619 as well as IDEA Part C.
57-60 minutes.
Facilitator: That they would collect and provide information on the supply and demand in political subdivisions. Now so we’ve always had it on law to provide supply and demand information this is in addition, or a new specification, that it is in terms of the political subdivisions. That is establish partnerships with public and private entities to increase the supply and quality of child care services. Which is interesting because that’s actually, it’s almost as if they took it out of our Ed Code. That’s exactly what the child care’s initiative programs charge is. Kind of interesting. And then it’s to coordinate their activities with activities of the state lead agency which is the CDE, and with other local agencies. So this is the charge for our resource and referral programs, and here is an opportunity for any input. And seeing none, which means we are all in support and want to keep funding them. Let’s go onto other topics.
Now the next one, the next one we are going to do in three blocks. This is the part of the federal law that says specifically activities that can improve quality in child care. So this would be presumably where we would be spending our quality dollars. So the first one is to support training and professional learning of the workforce. And then I have A-H because I wanted to save space. And if you have your, the public notice, I’m going to just clarify what those A-H were and even within the public notice I did try to synthesize so that the gist of what the law was you could get that. But in this, in the first one offering training and professional development and offering specialized training for child care providers caring for prioritized populations. And remember those were the children with disabilities, children who are English language learners. So those would be called out. That were incorporating effective use of data, is what you’re doing working, and you’ve, you’ve collected data. Is the training including behavior management? Is it providing training and outreach to parents regarding children’s positive development?
1:00-1:03 min
Is it providing training regarding nutritional and physical activity? Providing training for professional development regarding early neurological development? And is it connecting child care staff to federal and state financial aid to support their pursuance of post-secondary training and education? So those are all the pieces regarding one. When you comment I’m going to ask in this section if you’re going to comment about #1, #2, #4, or #5. I’m going to go to #2 which would be to improve early learning guidelines. Number 3 is handled in a whole separate session on the 14 th
. Number 4 is to improve the supply and quality of child care for infants and toddlers and the public notice includes my synopsis of the A-F.
And the A is establishing and expanding high quality community or neighborhood-based family and child development centers. B, like the first, is establishing or expanding operation of community or neighborhood based family child care networks. Yes the federal government did use the term networks. C is promoting and expanding child care providers’ ability to provide developmentally appropriate services to infants and toddlers. D is developing and infant and toddler component to the QRIS. E is improving ability of parents to access transparent and easy to understand consumer education regarding high quality infant/toddler care, and F carrying out other activities to improve the quality of infant/toddler care. So remembers there is a separate set aside, 3%, now remember, of our CCDBG match and maintenance of effort goes to infant/toddler. And then the fifth one is to expand the statewide system of child care resource and referrals. We didn’t have an opportunity to talk to that earlier so I’m anticipating that we might have more conversation about number, or more input, about numbers 1 or 4. But we’re going to open it up for this set, I believe we go to the 10 in this block. So this first one we are going to look at. Yes Heather from Marin and she want to give input on #1. Ok Heather in Marin regarding #1.
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1:03-1:06 minutes.
INPUT: Marin, Heather Lang (H): Activities to Improve the Quality of Child Care: Support training and professional learning of workforce (A – H) (#1)
(H): Yes Please, I would just applaud and welcome state funding to be presented towards training and professional development of child care providers in caring for children with disabilities. I think it’s an absolute necessity in terms of raising the bar of quality in all child care programs if providers are self-supported and trained on how to care for children with special needs and how to develop their programs to be more inclusive. And so, I would really applaud that effort. Thank you.
Facilitator: Thank you Heather. Next we have someone from Merced. Ok Merced.
INPUT: Merced, Samantha Thompson (S): Activities to Improve the Quality of Child Care:
Improve supply and quality of child care for infants and toddlers (A – F) (#4)
(S): This is Samantha Thompson, just a comment on #4, regarding activities to improve the quality of child care that the local child care and development planning councils be utilized in supporting those efforts based on supply and demand. Data from priorities reports they are conducted annually.
Facilitator: Ok. And the next speaker Robin Leighton from San Diego on 4A.
INPUT: San Diego, Robin Layton (R): Activities to Improve the Quality of Child Care:
Improve supply and quality of child care for infants and toddlers (A) (#4)
(R): One moment. Thank you. Good morning I just want to make a comment and ask a question. As far as establishing and expanding infant toddler programs I just want to make sure that increased funding is tied to this, there are a lot of organizations in our state that have and are willing to serve infants and toddlers again. But none of this can happen without increased funding.
Facilitator: And, and so that I’m sure when you take this information it’s, are you speaking in terms of both the regional market rate for Infant/toddler care and also the standard reimbursement rate adjustment for infant/toddler care?
(R): Yes, both of those.
Facilitator: Ok. Next we have a speaker from Santa Barbara.
INPUT: Santa Barbara, Joyce Stone (J): Activities to Improve the Quality of Child Care:
Improve supply and quality of child care for infants and toddlers (A – F) (#4)
(J): Hi Cecelia this is Joyce Stone, I have a comment about 4. I’m wondering if this is the place where we would want to consider expending the infant/toddler QRIS block grant or does that belong in the discussion about QRIS?
Facilitator: Ok good point of clarification and in this case it appears in both input sessions because it is in 4d, is to develop an infant/toddler component to the QRIS, could be imagined from that perspective and we would welcome your input both at today’s session and on the 14 th
in that regard.
1:06-1:09 minutes.
(J): Wonderful, thank you.
Facilitator: Ok, let me just double check before I move on.
(Marin) Hi, Marin has a follow-up question.
Facilitator: Ok.
INPUT: Marin, Heather Lang (H): Expand statewide system of Child Care Resource and Referrals
(Marin): On #5 I just wanted to get a little clarification about expanding the statewide system of child care resource and referrals.
Facilitator: Ok, so if, and because it says expand the statewide system I would like to provide to all of our stakeholders listening. In a number of states the child care resource and referral systems is sometimes a regional one, there might be like 5 R&Rs for the state, so our our system is already a very expansive statewide system with 61, I don’t know I think I have my numbers wrong, Is it 69? Maybe that’s it, it used to be 71 and now it’s 69 R&R agencies. So we already do have a robust R&R system compared to a number of states where parents have far more ready access to R&R agencies than to like I said, in some states there are 5 in the whole state. Next we have a question from Nirmala at San Mateo.
INPUT: San Mateo, Nirmala Dillman (N): Activities to Improve the Quality of Child Care
(N): Ok, I don’t know if you can hear me?
Facilitator: Yes.
(N) Oh great. This is Nirmala Dillman. From the San Mateo County office of education, the Local child care planning council and the county QRIS. So I just wanted to approve, or enthusiastically endorse including, including the elements, including supply and quality of child care for infants and toddlers within the QRIS and in other ways. And also, number 1 support training and professional learning in the workforce. Having a strong connection between that training and professional learning and the QRIS really can help us move quality forward and also promote programs desired to participate in the QRIS.
1:09-1:12 minutes.
(N): Whether it’s a licensed family child care provider, an alternative type of program or a center and that it appears to them connected and building on something that will help them both with marketing their program including the quality, delivering better outcomes for children. When they see it connected, infant/toddler work, preschool work, training and professional development. Also would like to say that the connection of stipends to support training and professional learning and aligning those with QRIS standards makes a lot of sense as well. So many great things are offered to teachers and providers but because they primarily each do this on their own time, when not working, the stipends are a small effort to increase the resources that they have available to them and encourage them and recognize their efforts to come out on Saturdays or at night when they don’t need to. Thank you.
Facilitator: Thank you Nirmala. Ok so I’m asking you then to clarify. Because were you going with this, I think you were going with this. I think you were using that to support, because we talked about the stipends, we have a couple of stipend programs that you were talking about AB-212. Might, might that also be the stipends for the permits or are you focusing on the stipends on AB-212?
(N): No, I think careful thought about how, about the incentives offered for the permit, but also AB-212, and aligning and you know recognizing that many counties AB-212 stipends are aligned with QRIS and so that, that helps all of that work go forward. But definitely the stipends for permit levels are very important. Also the flexibility that our QRIS plan and various pots of funding have allowed us to include some stipends that for providers or for teachers in QRIS funding has helped us to being able to cover some of the individuals who aren’t eligible for AB-212 or you know, for me the permit is not really an issue so I’m’ thinking family child care providers that are not connected to a network for example, infant/toddler sites that, that don’t have CCPR or Early Head Start.
1:12-1:15 minutes.
(N): That kind of thing, so it allows us to go locally with systems to support teachers without having quite so many qualifiers for them to no you can’t apply, no you can’t apply, you know what’s in it for you? It’s under the blanket of QRIS we can open the gates to others being careful that we’re using the designated set of funds for the correct people. But, but for the teacher, they don’t need to know which pot is funding them. Kind of like family accepting subsidies, it’s not so important that they know exactly which funding source is covering them at their particular site. Just so that they know that they can and you know that they are going to be served. So, so something similar I think is what we’re building across California and working towards. We just should keep our eyes on that, the universality of something, something important to keep looking to so that we don’t leave some of the workforce, critical parts of the workforce, out.
Facilitator: Thank you. We will pause for one minute. Thank you let me just see if there is anything else under 1, 2, 4, and 5. We do see that Merced and Rita had questions. OK. Merced if you would like to go first. Merced already commented on this item. Ok, good and then our other one is from which site. Rita did you have any additional comments, I’m not sure what site you’re from? It was from a previous slide I think it was page16. Thank you. Then we have Jessica Holmes who is up as Sacramento host site, Jessica go ahead.
1:15-1:18 minutes.
INPUT: Sacramento, Jessica Holmes (J): Activities to Improve the Quality of Child Care
She is just coming up to the microphone, hold on.
(J): Good morning, my name is Jessica Holmes and I represent the CA Department of Finance, we represent the Brown administration. We would like to just make a few general comments about this process and why the statutory language to have the stakeholder briefings and CDE to look over the State’s quality plan into place. Generally speaking, our quality plan for California hasn’t changed much over the last many, many, many years. And, there have been many changes since the time it was really last fully looked at. For example, we had our race to the top (RTT) grant that created a QRIS in California, and now we also have CCDBG reauthorization. And, so we felt like was time for our state to do a really thorough analysis of our current quality expenditures and to ensure that those quality expenditure were aligned with our new quality focus. Specifically the language includes recommendations regarding funding for the QRIS. Obviously in CA the Race to the top money has run out. We had a one-time infant and toddler QRIS block grant. And we do have $50 million in ongoing preschool QRIS block grant funding. However, we are looking at, if QRIS is going to be our number one quality driver in this state – what can we be doing better with our dollars to ensure we are supporting that quality driver in the state? And, so, we really hope that through this process that we can get additional feedback on how these dollars should be spent. We’ve already been talking to some folks ourselves and we’ve been hearing some comments regarding the inability of many people, many areas throughout the state to access quality funding. There are a lot of state-level activities. Not as much money goes out to all locals. So we are really hopeful that through this process additional money can be sent out to locals for individualized priorities – whether that be through another QRIS block grant, whether that be through expanding the infant toddler QRIS block grant, expanding QRIS block grant funding – any of those we think would be a really good expenditure of these funds. We are also looking at, in terms of funding the existing programs, we think it’s important to focus on continuing to fund programs that align and support QRIS activities. So things like the AB212 funds, they support professional development in that particular piece of the QRIS which we think is a good expenditure of funds. But, we don’t necessarily thing that every program is supporting the QRIS in its current form. Finally, we just want to reiterate that the CCDBG does provide us with some additional flexibility the reauthorization in how we fund these quality funds – whereas before we were meeting, ticking off a lot of different boxes. Now we have a lot more flexibility in really the language states that in the 10 different activities that we can use our quality funding for we can really focus on as few as one. So just keeping that flexibility in mind as you think about your comments on how you would like to see these funds invested. So thank you very much.
1:18-1:21 minutes.
Facilitator: Thank you. Thank you. OK. I’m going to move to our next slide which is, there are 10, and I’m going to 6, 7 and 8. So another use of those quality funds is to facilitate compliance with inspections, monitoring, training, Health and Safety with state standards. The 7 th
one is to evaluate and assess quality and effectiveness of child care programs and services and the 8 th
one is to support child care providers in voluntary accreditation. So in this instance I’m also looking for when you provide your input if you can clarify which of these activities you might want to be speaking to. And we will go to our list and see who is signed up to speak on any of these topic areas. Virginia go ahead. Which county? San Diego. Thank you.
INPUT: San Diego, Virginia Hartnett (V): Child Care Resource and Referral System
(V): Hi this is Virginia from San Diego. Actually we had wanted to speak up on slide number 16.
Facilitator: Virginia, If possible, could we finish this section on Activities to Improve Quality of Child Care and then what we will do is we have you as well as someone from Merced scheduled to go back to that slide and then we’ll come back.
(V): Certainly, thank you.
Facilitator: Thank you. OK so I’ll come back. So we did have San Diego cued up and we are going to provide clarification, there is a question about number 8 so do you want to ask that question?
INPUT: San Diego, Lucia Garay (L): Activities to Improve the Quality of Child Care: Support child care providers in voluntary accreditation (#8)
Yes thank you, Lucia Garay will speak.
1:21-1:24 minutes.
(L): We have others in the room that just want me to speak for them. On #8 we do not have Family Child care (FCC) accreditation as part of our state QRIS, other states do. And so we are just wondering what the voluntary accreditation would be? Would that be through the FCC accreditation, or is it NAEYC (National Association for the Education of Young Children), or is it part of our QRIS?
Facilitator: Ok, again, going back to what the federal law is saying it would use some of the quality dollars to support child care providers who would be pursuing accreditation. I don’t have the years, but at one point we did support providers with access to NAEYC accreditation through a funding through the state affiliate through the CAEYC and there was some hiccup of getting that accreditation. Historically what we found was that people didn’t continue to maintain their accreditations. What we need to find out if the field would really be looking to help support providers in accreditation and we will also need to look at which accrediting bodies would be the ones that, the ones we would want to support. There is an array of different accrediting bodies I think people are familiar with. The NAEYC accrediting, the National Family Child Care Homes Association, I also believe there is a national Montessori accreditation body. So we would look to be determined that the question would we want as the state to support accreditation. I know that some counties have supported their providers with accreditation in, so that would be what this is about. It isn’t speaking about anything, any particular ones, we would probably want to make sure we would have a state standard for which an accrediting body would actually qualify and in the QRIS which you mentioned, the NAEYC accreditation does come into play for the 5 point value for element 6. We have some other accrediting bodies that are currently in the process of trying to have their accreditation demonstrate alignment to that. So that’s what that would be and if that would be worth the state’s initiative.
1:24-1:27 minutes.
Facilitator: We have a clarification question on #8 from San Diego.
INPUT: San Diego, Virginia Hartnett (V): Activities to Improve the Quality of Child Care: Support child care providers in voluntary accreditation (#8)
(V): Thank you. This is Virginia Hartnett, our discussion is that for efficiency and effectiveness to just use the existing QRIS for child care providers rather than creating anything new or complicating with a variety of other accreditation possibly.
Facilitator: Right, right and that’s we appreciate that input. That is exactly the kind of thing we are looking at, is how would people want it to be used? And appreciate that. OK. Also have an input from Kate Miller of Marin County, Children NOW. Go ahead Kate.
INPUT: Marin, Kate Miller (K):
(K): Technical difficulty, sorry there. I just wanted to, I’m not sure if this is the right section per se. This is more top line comments from Children NOW and touching some of the various buckets so apologize if it does not quite fit into the exact section, but this really, we would like to encourage, start thinking about like a road map for how we’re going to ensure quality settings for all children receiving subsidies. And I think what becomes increasing clear to me is that from having the newly required visits for licensed exempt caregivers that we need to figure out to the you know, Pre-K centers that are participating in the QRIS. CDE is really is sort of the agency we would turn to really articulate this continuum of continuous quality improvement and workforce development for the state and how that in conjunction with First 5 California, the county commissions, and the R&Rs, and the COE’s, and the institutes of higher educations, and all the other key entities. But CDE is sort of the agency we would look to sort of set the backbone for us and up until now we sort of feel there has been missing a cohesive mass. And so the system is perceived or is maybe, but definitely perceived that piecemeal and inconsistent who’s benefiting and so we really just encourage this as an opportunity to really look to how we can map that out better so that people really can understand it. Maybe looking at other states and even considering having some you know experts on how, how to do this process. It might mean that we have additional resources beyond what needs to be submitted in February, but it’s an opportunity to really clarify as to what our quality improvement workforce is going to look like.
1:27-1:30 minutes.
(K): Even a visual that really shows you know shows, settings, providers, requirements, and standards for each one. The resources that are available funded through the state and federal dollars that would be so incredibly helpful to the field and to agencies and definitely to policy makers. Up until now we have not had the chance to do that but I think there is really an interest with this new requirement. And then as you consider how we are going to use the quality set aside funds, I think articulating one, the long term goal of our quality improvement and workforce development systems. Is it that everyone is participating in some level of continuous improvement? Is it that we are aligning in some ways to QRIS an essential framework or you know just stating that? And then that really allows us to think about how all the different activities and initiative are going to align to that goal and then really thinking again how we create this backbone, this sort of infrastructure through this plan that’s across the entire continuum of studies. Clearly, this part of funding is not going to do it all, but CDE really can sort of lay out this critical infrastructure so that everyone else can sort of align to and really guide the field and that infrastructure can be leveraged by counties and regions. What would really help us then would identify where the gaps are and what increasing funds, you know those funds will be going up over time, but really allow us to think about how we are going to use those strategically over time as they go up to the 9 percent. Sort of the buckets where we see the help backbone is to help us, is we have data systems that, supporting the consumer education database, the workforce registries, the evaluation of QRIS, other evaluation of the initiatives. You’ve got the critical early care and education tools as a bucket, you know you’ve got the disaster plan, the health and safety modules, the ASQ, the early learning guidelines, the DRDP, the CLASS, potentially the ERS, and that keeps going. You’ve got the workforce infrastructure, then career ladder, the permits that are involved. These are just examples and then really getting to the point about the Quality Improvement initiative, through the small but mighty menu of the critical initiatives that can be passed by local, and we will be providing written comments with more details, but I’m just trying to set more of sense of what I think we need more guidance in the field and then of course all these buckets we really do need sort of a strong safe rational for each investment and really looking at how they align to the goals, the benchmarks for each. So that over time we can really assess if we’re really getting to where we want to go as a state and then really then adjust our investments over time. Certain things are going to be one time, certain things are going to be 2-3 years, and certain things are ongoing but really having some markers for how we are doing as a state. So I apologize if it doesn’t fit into one section but that’s all I wanted to give input on, so thank you.
1:30-1:33 minutes.
Facilitator: Alright thank you Kate. Some of that tied into that requirement for a statewide framework or Pathways, and I appreciate your comments and look forward to the further spelling out of them that you suggested you’d be doing. Thank you Kate and the next speaker on this topic, Joyce Stone from Santa Barbara. Go ahead Joyce.
INPUT: Santa Barbara, Joyce Stone (J): Activities to Improve the Quality of Child Care (6-8)
(J): Thanks, I actually have a comment on each one of these items. Regarding the first one. We all know that licensing is very important but I would not want us to over invest in that area where there are other things we can do with these quality dollars. That’s my personal comment. I think in terms of the evaluation too, we have an evaluation process through the QRIS and I think as the QRIS system becomes more embedded around the state, that provides a lot of the framework – there’s a professional development pathways, there are all the elements on the matrix, and so forth. We only have a selected number of our programs in each county participating so far, but I think there is a framework there that we have developed over several years from the Race to the Top funding and as we move ahead with IMPACT and the QRIS Block Grants and so forth. And then in terms of accreditation, Santa Barbara County had an accreditation in the state, I think because we have resources there and we piloted the crosswalk with NAEYC for center accreditation. And then so many of the requirements are the same so we have successfully in place of the ERS assessment for level 3 and we are very pleased about that and so I think if we did have more support for statewide for accreditation and I understand that family child care accreditation is not yet in our system. But I understand there is some effort towards that goal. So anyways I just wanted to make a few more comments, thank you.
1:33-1:36 minutes.
Facilitator: OK. Thank you. And I’m going to our next one, thank you all. And the last two are, and you can see broad, so I expect to get some of the comments on. Number 9 says to support state and local efforts to develop high quality program standards regarding health, mental health, nutrition, physical activity, and physical development. And number 10 is that open one that to carry out activities to improve quality (sometimes that won’t) and measurement of (oh maybe it is), measurement of outcomes (oh let’s see) I think I left out the word, the quality and for which. Excuse me, and for which measurement of outcome regarding improved provider preparedness, child safety, child well-being, or entry into kindergarten. So just pause for a moment to see if there is anything coming in. So I’m going to start back in and it looks like we have San Diego and I believe that’s Rita?
INPUT: San Diego, Rita Parlay (R): Activities to Improve the Quality of Child Care (6-10)
(R): Thank you, one moment. Hi, I just have a general comment on these two slides. Running programs that have Head Start state preschool, QRIS system and also inclusive practices, and I also receive in the special education in early Ed. I just want us to think as we are giving our input as to how we improve quality. That is creating more paperwork and more practices around what we think is improving quality. I’m very concerned that we are moving towards a performance standard based on Head Start type qualities where we have so many requirements that our teachers are moving away from the instruction and the children that we have in the classroom. I’m getting very concerned as I’m looking at our QRIS system that there is so many areas that we think is going to improve quality and in reality it’s taking our children and our teachers from best practices in the classroom.
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1:36-1:39 minutes.
(R): And I think we need to look at that when we are looking at assessments, evaluation, and taking overall the look at quality improvement because I’m finding that teachers are spending more time getting their ducks in a row, dotting their I’s, crossing their T’s, and counting widgets more than spending time on best practices. So I’m very concerned as we are starting to look at more evaluation.
Facilitator: Thank you, and Robin, is Robin from San Diego?
INPUT: San Diego, Robin Layton (S): Activities to Improve the Quality of Child Care (6-10)
(S): Hi this is Robin, I want to ditto at what Rita just said, and add that along the same lines, that the Title V program already had these high quality standards and so when I see the word, develop, it concerns me because it makes me think that these are going to be more unfunded mandates and what I would like to actually see is continue to support by increasing these standard reimbursement rates so that these programs that are already high quality can continue to operate and serve the neediest children in our state.
Facilitator: Thank you Robin and let’s hear from Monica Adrian from Merced.
INPUT: Merced, Monica Adrian (M): Activities to Improve the Quality of Child Care (#9)
(M): So, I just wanted to comment on number 9 and I was wondering if you were also considering high quality standards for both inclusive practices and family engagement?
Facilitator: Thank you Monica. I was putting in here what was in the law, I don’t think that that would certainly would preclude that and as a state senate I can speak for our special education division here. We are very much trying to support inclusive practices from both our special ed. division and our own division. That’s in the state plan for special education. You will see it reflected there. So what I’m hearing you is taking this opportunity as with another speaker to make sure that we are supporting inclusive practices or helping progress with inclusive practices?
(M): and family engagement.
Facilitator: Oh and family engagement, yes.
1:39-1:42 minutes.
Facilitator: we are just taking a pause to see if there are any more speakers for this topic and if not we will be going back to the Child Care Resource and Referral System. OK and I believe this is Virginia in San Diego.
INPUT: San Diego, Rita Parlay (R): Child Care Resource and Referral System: Collect data and provide info on coordination of services, including special education (619 and Part C)
(Right, so we will be here in one second and thank you for returning to this so we could follow up).
(R): Just a quick question on, can you elaborate on collect data and provide info on coordination of services, including special education? Can you, how would the child care resource and referral system take a look at that?
Facilitator: I would have to pull out where that is in the new regulations, and the new regulations include not only the regulations but it has sort of a preamble to to that which responds to the comment, and we’ll get that, in providing, that in for the most part the perspective from the federal government on that is that the R&R’s recognize who to make those referrals for. For infant, this would be when we are talking about Part C. These would be for the children before they come into the K-12 system, which this would be for our infants and toddler who are at risk and who currently are covered through the Department of Developmental Services and through the regional centers. And so it’s making sure that the R&R’s have that information and know how to make the appropriate referral making sure that young children have access to that. You can see that there is, that they’re making that connection because it also speaks earlier about the use of developmental screening in terms of the consumer education. Pull back up to that other one on Consumer Education. On consumer education you will see that it has also about developmental screening and resources and services. So that’s under the Consumer Education, so all of this block you would think would fall, does fall under what the R&Rs would be expected to do. So if screening would indicate that a child should be referred that the program or the screener, that the R&Rs would serve as that, as that middle person to help to connect the dots.
1:42-1:45 minutes.
Facilitator: You are expected to be sort of that that glue for that to happen. So does that make sense for you, the expectation for the R&Rs is that they help to facilitate children receiving necessary services?
(R): I wrote two different things. The screening would be just a basic screening that I’m assuming agencies would do and that the screening would then the information would then go through the referral, the resource and referral system and then special education? It just seems that there needs to be more clarification on this. I don’t see, I understand through the K-12 system that as soon as they turn three we need to be providing those services, but I don’t understand once we just do basic screening how that would go back to the referral system and then they would assist with conducting services, it just seems there is a disconnect there?
Facilitator: So Virginia, I’m not, not sure if you’re speaking from a K-12 perspective because your response seems to imply that, it says that the resource and referral agency would be part of collecting information and providing information, collecting data and providing information on coordinating the services. I explained that they would play a role and I’m sure that this might be some, also some engagement with Department of Public Health, it could be some engagement with Department of Developmental Services and locally with the regional centers so that children who are early identified in the need of, either at risk or identified early delays would have access to services and as a point of contact the R&R would be expected to help coordinate that. They are not providing the services. It doesn’t say anything about providing training, they are to try to connect the dots.
(R): Then I would assume then the funding should be coming towards that system in order to have really well trained people who will be making those referrals and making those connections to the different agencies based on, based on a simple screening.
Facilitator: Thank you.
1:45-1:48 minutes.
INPUT: San Diego, Virginia Hartnett (V): Child Care Resource and Referral System
(V): Ok, so this is Virginia Hartnick, that was Rita Palay and my comment was on this slide. Our R&R already collaborates with the Local Planning Council (LPC) to provide some of this information, particularly I’m looking at supply and demand in political subdivisions, I’m wondering if that means supervisorial districts, etc., zip code priority. Would this change anything that we’re currently doing or does this add another layer of responsibility on the R&Rs? And perhaps removing that responsibility from the planning council? Thank you.
Facilitator: Thank you for that clarification. And many do collect it from the political subdivisions. The federal language is, is not more specific that what you see there. Thank you Virginia, Samantha you have input?
INPUT: Merced, Samantha Thompson (S): Child Care Resource and Referral System
(S): Yes my comments were somewhat similar I think to those that have already been stated with regard to collecting data and providing information on coordination of services including special Ed and then of course the collecting data and providing info on supply and demand in political subdivisions. Those two items are under child care resource and referral system and has already been alluded those are activities that are currently conducted by the local planning council. So when we talk about coordination of services, again I guess my comment is just clarifying are these duplicated efforts that are currently under way or is this something that could be more specifically identified as a collaboration between resource and referrals and the local planning council? Because I think again you know just looking at it under the heading it seems to suggest that it would be a duplicated activity or it would negate the work that’s currently being done on an annual basis by the local planning councils. And just a comment to that prior speaker. In terms of collecting information on supply and demand, not every county actually reports the information locally in political subdivisions and so I think that’s an important consideration and that that could potentially be a change in practice.
Facilitator: Thank you Samantha. Michael, I believe it’s with San Mateo, go ahead. I need to clarify. We went back to respond to this earlier slide. Are you on this earlier slide? I’m not sure what you’re talking.
1:48- 1:51 minutes.
INPUT: San Mateo, Michael Garcia (M): Child Care Resource and Referral System
(M): Yes I’m on the Child Care Resource and Referral System slide. I just wanted to echo the comments of Virginia and Samantha – the bullet point around supply and demand and the information on political subdivisions. So, like Samantha said local planning councils have access to what’s call the early learning needs assessment tool where – and help develop it – a subscription fee is provided where we can research supply and demand information by zip code, county, by assembly district and senate district so just wanted to make mention of that.
Facilitator: Thank you and point of clarification. Remember this is from the federal law so it is specific to structures that we have in place in this state as a local planning council is a state entity. Thank you Michael, Lucia you have a question, or input on this topic as well.
INPUT: San Diego, Lucia Garay (L): Child Care Resource and Referral System: Collect data and provide info on coordination of services, including special education (619 and Part C)
(L): Yes, I’m going back to the collecting data and providing information for 619 and Part C. So at the point of clarification, the R&Rs report and coordinate everything regarding referrals. From all of the comments I am understanding that the new determination to collect data and coordinate services would be for example: If a private infant/toddler provider who say an IMPACT grant intervention or a funded effort conduct developmental screening that instead of them finding within their community that referred that child that that provider would go to the R&R, and the R&R would coordinate all of the referrals? Am I understanding this correctly, because I’m not understanding if they have the funding for the case management that fits within or if it’s that they are coordinating and logging that they made referrals when parents called and they indicate that their child might have a developmental need.
Facilitator: Again, I have to quote we have provided on our, on the public notice that access to the federal regulations and all of its supporting information and at this moment I cannot flip through it and find the response. Only reporting in this slide, these are identified as expectations of a child care resource and referral system. OK.
1:51-1:54 minutes.
Facilitator: We are going to take a pause right now and if you have any general comments then please send us the names of your speakers. Thank you. (PAUSE). Thank you Joyce, go ahead.
INPUT: Santa Barbara, Joyce Stone (J): General Comment & Child Care Resource and Referral System
(J): I was just wondering if you could remind us what … budget is for the 17-18 … or what we’re talking about? Overall.
Facilitator: Could you repeat that Joyce?
(J): Could you remind us of what the overall budget is for the quality dollars for the upcoming year?
Facilitator: Ok, so the overall budget amount, I will need to work with Department of Finance to confirm what that amount is.
(J): Ok, and I have another question/comment. It is somewhat based on some of the comments I’ve heard from my child care coordinators colleagues, but it seems that some of this language in the resource and referral slide was really directed more towards what the referrals the R&Rs are already doing. For example, I know they track whether a parent calls in and has a child with special needs and here in Santa Barbara for example, we have an inclusive child care action team as a subcommittee of the LPCs and we look at that data and try and help coordinate services through the LPC and the R&R. So it seems like maybe it wasn’t so much a policy shift in terms of data collection but rather a confirmation of what we are already doing. I’m wondering if this specific language regarding the LPCs as you had mentioned the plan calls for the funding for the resource and referral and local planning councils and we’ve looked quite a bit at R&Rs – but we haven’t seen anything specific to the LPCs.
1:54-1:57 minutes.
Facilitator: Once again, this one is resurfacing on ways to address what was within the child care and development, oh I did it again, transposed that – its block grant, I’m sorry catch my own mistakes here. This is an opportunity if you are going to speak about any other areas for our investments, continued investments, you can. Remember the federal law would not have spoken about local planning councils unless they were having that become an activity across, on the states and territories.
(J): Ok, thank you for that clarification. And another thought that we are still operating under is a 50% reduction in funding in 2008, so perhaps restoring full funding to LPCs could be considered. Thank you.
Facilitator: Thank you. Next up Tony Tyson with Marin COE please.
INPUT: Marin, Tony Tyson (T): Policy Comment?
(T): Hello this is Tony Tyson, I’m local planning council coordinator for San Francisco. And in looking at, I was informed, and this may be more of a policy comment, but I was informed that CDE is currently looking at revising the Ed code and I was wondering if that was to reflect the new federal law and how that would impact kind of going back to duplication of services and looking at local priorities. I’m wondering if that is something that’s going to be addressed.
Facilitator: The department is looking at revising Ed code to the extent to which we have authority and to respond to the federal requirements. When you talk about local priorities I don’t know that that would be part of that but they are looking at, our policy office is looking at the extent to which they would do a comprehensive review and a revision of all of our regulations, or whether we would do a segmental approach.
(T): Thank you.
Facilitator: Thank you Tony. Our next speaker Robin Layton with San Diego. Robin are you there?
INPUT: San Diego, Robin Layton (R): General Comment
(R): Yes we were just having a phone issue, I’m here. So my question is an overall specific input to the quality improvement expenditure plan.
1:57-2:00 minutes.
(R): I was wondering why or if there’s any input that relates to retention for the already existing, highly professional, low paid, early education teachers and I would like to see much of this funding go towards retention issues. Some ideas that came up at a task force that I was at last week were some student loan forgiveness opportunities, some, a retirement fund for the teachers that are qualified under the existing child development permit matrix. They are all professionals that many of them do not have a retirement plan and then maybe some of this funding could also go to increasing the wages for the teachers. So it’s not, it doesn’t appear to be any of the numbered items so I was wondering if you could actually address why none of that is on there, maybe it doesn’t belong here, and if not where would it belong?
Facilitator: What I had done was I went through the child care development act and looked at where it was asking for the state to respond to do certain things. Like for training and technical assistance regarding business practices and they also had specifically the ten allowable quality activities to improve quality of child care. So that’s why we went, those are the ones that are identified in the law for the use of the funds. The compensation in other parts of the law, which is what this is not addressing, it has eligibility and need and those kinds of things and it speaks to using the market rate survey and the SMI. Those kinds of things that might address that.
INPUT: Marin COE, Abby Cohen (A): Training and Professional Learning (PL)
(A): Cecelia, this is Abby Cohen and I happen to be in the Marin COE and I just wanted to clarify for people that in regard to compensation where as a further extension of the language so that it is more specific now on compensation in the final regulations. So under 98.44, it is number A7, it says, this is under the training and professional development section. It reads, improves the quality, diversity, stability and retention.
2:00-2:03 minutes.
(A): And then it goes on in parentheses, including financial incentives and compensation improvement, end of parentheses, of caregivers, teachers and directors. So that’s a change in terms of flushing out more specifically the compensation can be one of the items that quality supports. Also, just to recognize that, I did always have to laugh, there’s a list of quality activities, but the very last one is basically anything else because it says other. So every state can support quality as long as they can connect what the rationale that someone mentioned, what’s the rationale here, is there a connection to what you’re spending your money on with the evidence based around quality. And clearly on the compensation issue, our state with all the work of Marcy Whitebook and then others in this state is leading the nation evidence based, so that is just something I wanted to clarify that it is further explicated in the final regulations that were issued on September 30 th
.
Facilitator: Right and for those of you looking at that I did find that on one of our slides just on page 563 of those regulations.
INPUT: San Diego, Robin Layton (R): Training and Professional Learning (PL)
(R): Thank you for that clarification and I would strongly suggest and propose that the majority of the quality improvement funding go to the already existing quality programs to look at retention efforts which is a direct link to quality and figure out how to, rather than increase any regulations or mandates, pay equity for our already existing professional teachers. One of the things that we have been talking about for years is that our existing professional teachers need to be on par with K-12 teachers and that includes retirement. Until we get to that, I would not want to see any increase on funded mandates.
Facilitator: Thank you speaker, could you please provide your name? I believe that was Robin coming back? OK.
(R): Yes that was Robin again.
Facilitator: Thank you. Alrighty, so let me say that we have this entire month, tell your friends in the field, you have this entire month to provide written comment to go through both the federal law and the recently released regulations and to provide any written comment, it would go to statepln@cde.ca.gov
.
2:03-2:05:31 minutes.
Facilitator: Anytime through this entire month we are collecting data and your input to the extent to which you can map what you are saying to the federal law or the federal regulation. To the extent, please do so, to the extent to which you want to reference any current funding like we had heard for local planning councils or for the child care initiative project. Anything so that we actually know and can direct that into our review process would be appreciated, and to the extent that there might even be some assistance provided like with a framework or those kinds of things. The department is most open to what, however you can assist us in, with this very serious work about reviewing how the funds are utilized and then mapping out how we might move forward. Alright, well we have the gift of time, and so I am going to close this input session and thank all of you. And I’ll particularly then to call out, our satellite, our hosts at Kings, Marin, Merced, Sacramento, San Diego, San Mateo, Santa Barbara and Shasta. Thank you for opening your facility and we appreciate your assistance and making sure that people that were taking input during this period. Thank you.
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