e e e good afternoon everyone Welcome to our November Early Childhood advisory committee meeting um so glad to see you all around the screen as well as around the table today Happy
fall um and we have as always a loaded agenda so we are going to get right uh get started we'll ask for the roll call yes before we when we call roll please when we
state your name say whether you're here and if you're virtual your meeting location and your rationale for virtual participation Cecilia sores Cecilia you're muted
good afternoon I'm here I'm virtually because the distance more than 60 miles thank you Miss Jennifer Parish I'm here Clark Anders I'm here Cheryl
Morman here from Richmond due to staffing issues thank you Aaron Edmonson I am virtual due to being more than 60 miles away thank you Kristen Johnson here D
Franklin President Melinda Langford pres uh virtual due to the distance thank you Daryl Turner I'm here virtual due to illness thank you Daryl thank feel
better Daryl Gina Warford uh virtual due to the distance 60 or more thank you Vivian mukah here Michelle Howard Mariam Sheran here virtual due to
distance thank you theia P Ste I'm virtual due to medical reasons thank you Dr Bergen Nelson here dander wolberger here Elizabeth
yanz hi I'm virtual due to distance thank you Christopher Quin virtual due to distance Valerie irari thanks Chris Wendy Lico
here Holly McCartney here and Susan Patrick here pass it back to you sure thank you and I understand we do not have a quum in person so we will not move on any
actions today um and so we will table our approval of the September minutes for our our next meeting this is a reminder on that so if we don't have form we cannot take any votes or
conection um we will move the September minutes which you have a copy of in your files in front of you to our next um meeting um and then also means that our next Mee have some person just a a reminder I also wanted
to flag that although we included it on Town Hall um we going forward we'll make sure that the location of the meetings is on each of your agendas in addition to on the website ands in all in order to uh ensure um maximum
kind of awareness of uh this meeting C and make sure that we're doing everything we can do to U ensure uh public conf we've also moved and we'll move to the item next public comment up we received feedback from a uh previous
sessions we initially and there's flexibility and discretion provided under Virginia law but we often ended with public comment um uh but that uh meant that members of the public would not have the opportunity to share their perspective and feedback with you prior
to items that you might be deciding on and so in response to that feedback we now move public comment up for this meeting and our subsequent meeting so in case members of public want to comment on things that are being decided by body that you would have the opportunity uh
to review or hear that if it was provided live uh prior to making any decision on on the items have any public comment we do not have any public comment at this time having said that we are ready to
move into updates let's you turn it over to you Jenna excellent thank you please uh if you cannot hear us at any point um both uh Jo virtually please let aiyah know via chat so we have a series of
update items um that we wanted to make sure that this group was familiar with none of them require a any kind of action or decision but um as we wrap up it's hard to imagine wrapping up calendar year 2024 there's just been a
set of things um that are relevant for this body to be aware and updated on as we think about some of the decision items that will be in front of this body and the Board of Education going into 2025 so the first one and this should
looks familiar to what you saw a year ago is just a reminder on where we are on staggering uh terms for the Early Childhood advisory committee so when this body was first created via legislation 2020 everybody started at
the same time and that presents some challenges and kind have every come on everybody off at the same time and there wouldn't be some of the institutional knowledge so we have worked closely with the board to present a plan and receive approval for that plan to stagger the
ter so uh we're in the second year of that um if you saw this content before terms of the why as a reminder the board approved this plan after you all endorsed it uh in the spring and some of our newest members uh joined us joined
us this summer next slide please so where are we now um so we it seems a while off though it's not um but similar to what the department did last year we will run another uh process to uh post
and compete for initial six to eight positions uh this spring into the summer so we'll have some folks rolling off this year uh positions will be posted we'll take applications for them and then of second round or phase two we'll start on uh July 1st if you were not
part of that Phase 2 um you uh will just stay in if it's not one of the position that's advertising this year you will stay in your position uh you don't need to do anything you don't need to reapply you'll probably be in that phase three that last that last reminder as a reminder we sort just randomly selected
the different positions across uh the three phases um as that you know as there there is no kind official uh regulation Rel to that um and then uh if a position becomes bigon because someone's job or role switches that we
of still keep them in Sp so the goal is to kind of keep all of this body divided into three groups so that we're not in a place where um large you know more than a third of the body is turning over in any given year so next slide please
um we get some of us age and I love the chies want about the uh just letting you know that the groups that are in that blue column um are the ones that will be up for competition um this winter and spring so
if you are in that category and you're interested in serving them please make sure that you pay attention to emails but is connections and the ways in which we will we will advertise of this but this is our publicly funded provider nonprofit and ecce provider that is not
publicly funded Head Start school-based representative Local School Division or School Board uh that operates Early Childhood Program nonprofit advocacy organization one of the two slots professional or faculty member would
experience um in early childhood from a university in Virginia College of War University in Virginia there's two positions there and then or the second position rather student and then an advocacy or service Organization for children with disabilities or special te so those are the positions that we
randomly selected for the rotation this year and you'll see in that third column we'll have this conversation again uh at the end of 2025 in preparation for that Final Phase to uh have that termin 2026 so where we go from here um again
we will in the first quarter of next year uh put out the call for nominations we will use the uh superintendent newsletter to education update in addition to writing his connections aah will also send out an email to folks who
are currently on the body um if you are interested and eligible and want to serve a second term and you're coming up in this round you will need to to reapply so make sure really clear we'll try to state that multiple times um uh before and you'll need to make sure that
you still meet the criteria associated with the position we all know this but these are positions that are are described in law so the the the department does not have discretion on oh well you you you know we really like you and you used to do that job but now you do this job can we sort of bend the
rule unfortunately this is not a waer or flexibility situation we have to make sure that you uh uh fit the criteria set forth in law and then we will um ultimately complete the application process use a rubric to evaluate select
uh a set of candidates take it back to the board and have those folks roll on um July 1 I think last do went fairly smoothly we just we know we just know we need to in a world where everybody around this table and on our Zoom receives hundreds of emails a day just make sure that if you're interested in reine that we're getting to you and are
C on those States exps any questions about that I should note while folks are contemplating questions this is also a moment as we prepare H for next next week and and and all of the Gratitude
and appreciation we just wanted to say another thank you for everybody who has joined this year and been a part of this um this is just such an important advisory body as the state of Virginia is doing um such exciting things in the space of of Early Childhood we know it's
a lot to get here we know uh as I think of of Miss Moren and what's probably going on you know in the background just and you know those you are sick it was probably sick because some sweet little kid got him sick and Sneed up his nose last week but um it is just a big deal
for many of you to get here on a workday in the middle of the day um but our board deeply appreciates the time effort perspective that goes into these items and I just on behalf of the department and the superintendent as well as the office of the secretary just reflect
that appreciation and that every single thing goes to the board uh that you all um go through it thoroughly we spend hours together making sense of it um in order to make this work work better for the for the field all right with that let's talk a little bit about the commission on Early
Childhood care and education and so uh this is an update item some of you may have been watching some of you you know are into Deadpool some of you are watching other kind of top movies some of you are like let me see if the newest commission meeting is online because I'm
gonna get some popcorn um but uh we we uh let this body know about the commission when it first uh was codified into law um in uh 2023 and then like last year in anticipation of the general
assembly right to do an update um the group has met four times uh the commission has met four times since the summer and we wanted today just to bring you some of the highlights if for some reason you haven't watched and framed all the four uh meetings thus far um
it's very In The Weeds on the fin financing but I think ultimately helpful as you all are the body thinking about all elements of the system health and safety access and enrollment family engagement quality measurement and Improvement um and thinking about kind of infrastructure and Innovation there's
elements of that that are are relevant for for this group so this commission has a really specific charge it's different from yours and that's not about advising on policies prior to the board but is really about looking at the financing of the Early Childhood system
and then providing recommendations to the governor and to the the the general Sly namely the the fiscal committee so House Appropriations and Senate Finance um the uh the group met four times from August until November and received a lot
of data um and produced a report that was due on October first and then are currently uh working on a report on some recommendations of the new report required from the legislature uh last year so couple things that they did that are worth knowing about we can move to
the next slide please so they did uh they broke into work groups and they looked at some of the laws that had been uh carried forward they did not passed last year but we carried forward to uh further analyze kind of came up with a
report that described some of the perspective on that so one example was there was some talk of a child care substitute of full Grant fund and so the work group met on that brought that back to the larger group I think there was an acknowledgement that the workforce is
still the most Salient and important issue for the sector you know there was a lack of consensus on what whether the sort pooling or putting dollars towards a substitute was the was the way to solve for that um that folks had different sort of perspectives on um you
know whether or not we should fund that or sort of potentially and know you know you know focus more on things like the weight list right with a limited sours of dollars but I think certainly an acknowledgement of the importance of the of the workforce challenges um there was a proposal about re um uh reimbursing
Child Care vendors based on enrollment um that when we engage with the work group as well as the patron of this law helping them understand between when that law came out and some of the changes in federal law that this is now required federally um and so I of it
probably makes sense for Virginia to uh continue to work towards implementation but get a better understanding of you what the federal requirements were how this was working in other states and potentially most importantly virginity needs to put in place an attendance tracking system so
they can actually uh make sure that they're encouraging attendance at the same time that they're paying by involvment if you're going to separate payment from um attendance and then lastly there was a good conversation about whether or not we should make um
uh Child Care Educators categorically eligible for Child Care Subsidy anding some data around how many Child Care teachers are already participating in the childcare subsidy program again folks said we need more childcare teachers we got to figure out how to
track teachers there is a question about categorical eligibility because the only real new group that it makes uh eligible you know based with some of our higher income cut offs are folks who are um you know making significant more than 85% of State Comm income and that would be sort
of potentially considering what we know that the salaries are in childcare that sort of more accent households that maybe you know would be harder to justify making them the priori as compared to you know a a household that was at you know truly below the the poverty fund right so kind of thinking
for so there again was a sense of like okay like we need to sort of work on these Workforce issues we need to make sure I think there's some consensus that if there are childcare educ ators who are eligible for talk care subsidy that um that they're aware of that and supported to apply that then also let us
back to the conversation about the weight so even if we did make child child care teachers categorically eligible you know next week but they would then go on a weight list that is now over you know 11,000 children so um that was just kind of but that gives you kind of a sense of the type of
conversation and sort of even though I think that the desire is to continue to better support the sector the kind any how do I get there so there there's a range of of of of uh different perspectives and then the other thing that we discussed at length
was how we think about some of these policy decisions that as I described to this body before have now been codified in the Virginia budget and so therefore kind of require action by the governor as a general assembly if you wanted to
shift them so as part of codifying them last year here so they said we're going to keep co-payments where they are we're going to keep work requirements where they are we're going to you know fund more of the system that was the very exciting budget P it also said But we want the commission to look at these very issues and provide recommendations
um you know uh anticipation of next year's session right of the 2025 session so those um those topics were discussed at length on the next few slides give you kind of an overview of what we discussed with them
next slide please question yep when is the federal government requiring that is there is there yes so it went into effect when the rule went into effect but they gave all of the states the ability to request
waivers for up to two years so Virginia has not has requested a waiver so that would mean for us would be a summer of 2026 so I think one of the um really important data points that
shaped all of the conversation uh kind of regardless of your your your position or perspective at the commission was the presence of these of these weight list so just as a reminder to how we got here you know we faced a pretty significant
risk of a federal funding clip a year ago right that there had been increasing parent demand for our programs but some of those slots were funded with covid related dollars and that thousands of kids would have to go off chalk their
subsidy and mix delivery if the state didn't step in the state stepped in in a big way um but as part of doing this also kind of set up a really clear framework here's how many slots you're going to find here's how you're going to determine where those slots go here what we're going to do about co-payments and
work requirements um and of July 1 if there's demand that is greater than the slots that refunding in the budget well you need the programs going to be required Child Care Subsidy mixed delivery VPI to create weightless and so that was kind of something that was a
pretty big shift for the field if you looked at historical data it was we had weightless before on the chalk subsy program they were in the low thousands um if that it was not sort of significant we created a weight list as
required by law in partnership with our uh colleagues at the State Department of Social Services as well as the 120 local offices across the state and in a way that um maybe could have been predicted based on sort of the kind of unusually
high growth in this program um certainly exceeded what people thought was going to happen in terms of some of the estimates so we this weight list just grew and grew and grew as I'll show in a second the weight of growth has slowed down but as of the end of October we
have over 11,100 kids St High probably 11,600 kids now on the Child Care Subsidy weight list um this is very significant growth um the single biggest age group is infants and toddlers so
just a sort of historic demand from these populations um uh then uh followed by preschool and then school age if you're focusing just on birth of five it still puts you about 8,000 kids on the childcare subsidy and that's really over
just July August September October so four months right a third of the year you've got 8,000 kids on this weight list I want to clarify we've been asked this question before this is different from the weight list that jener Clark might have at their sites right where
there's not enough capacity these are places where for the most part families have said we have got a spot you know we just need the voucher we need the financial resources to be able to take advantage of that slot and I think it K CLK or somebody else talking last time now if you get to a family who's on
chare subsidy next on on your waiting list at your site like they're often having to turn this down if they don't have access to the voucher to make the child care affordable so we have heard from every corner of the state um deep concerns about this um I think it was
again as we sort of said if you looked at historical Trends this just reflects a high demand than we've ever you know we've ever seen before we think there's a set of factors here including um data points that we've shared with this group before more kids than ever before under
the age of six in the Comm well have all available parents working really historic High Workforce participation in Virginia which is accompanied by very low unemployment so there lots of lots of people are working particularly parents um and then you know as we talk
a little about later I also think that it's speaks to um some of the trust and credibility that our public private system has built with families and just continues to be um more and more families who want their kids to benefit from being part of of this system so uh
about 70% of our localities have a weight list we've looked even at those that don't have a weight list and we're talking about I mean there's just not a lot of of leg room because this is so Bas and actual so if you don't have a weight list you're like right you know right there within you know fewer than
10% of spots sort of open kind of through attrition or other things um if you go to the next slide this could you sens ofic rate of growth as been trying to foring our elected officials in the session this gives you the blue line is
all children on the weight list the orange line is uh birth to five only and um this just gives you a sense of this thing is growing you might notice from this trend that looks like as we kind of get later that there's a little bit more
growth in school age birth to five is the priority for kids coming off the weight list so you are going to see um that kind of trend continue as we sort of focus in on our birth to Five K seeing some of this really high demand so even with that factor as you think
about the numbers I just shared with you you're still seeing the single largest source of demand coming from parents of of uh Elder parents of infants and toddlers but you're going to see um school age numbers are going to remain high because we are going to prioritize
bir The Bu coming off the weight list next slide please we also see quite a bit of variation across the state if you look at weight list as a percentage of the slots and you break that down into the non-red regions the Statewide
average is about 26% so again just sort of reflects some of the significant growth the real desirey services but you'll see kind of a bit of a variation I should note Capital Area um is is not
necessarily an indicator of lower demand for my colleagues up there I would just want to note that the uh County of Fairfax continues to play a huge role in providing local vouchers and so they have really stepped up and just want to kind of acknowledge that in terms of as
there is scarcity of State resources uh part of the reason we see lower demand for capitals because uh our folks in Fair facts have really uh stepped up and are funding a significant number of local vouchers uh thus leading to um because again remember fairfx is about
20% of the state's population uh and so um you that really speaks to the contributions being made locally there but you see nobody is immuned from this this is true across the state in pretty significant numbers um uh as I said before you know nearly every Community
has a weight list we raise your bank close to that as we go forward I also say we're getting sort of initial data on this over time number of kids coming off the weight list and being served is very very small each month we have far more kid more far far more
families who just say I'm going to opt off the weight list because it's just not tenable to wait I'm going to lightly with that I'm to fight off out of work um uh then are um uh coming on to the certific program so the weight list does
drop and kind of goes up and goes down but it um has more to do with families saying you know we just can't wait than it does with actually get B they follow like somebody decid
they're not interested they come off want aot we do a little bit of both we're trying to kind of get it you know sort of figuring out what the right level of like information we've been talking and our our colleagues at very close partnership
with our colleagues at Social Services and the local offices you know a lot of this is new and trying to figure out I mean the actual numbers of kids coming on are so low and so sorting out like what is the right set of prompts sort of say hey if you still want to be on this
should we do that every quarter should we do that more frequently on the flip side um also realizing that there's some of that sort of works systemically but second a slot comes open how do we make sure that we're laser focusing on finding the next person on the list and
that's just tricky when you think about this many slots turning over and the weightless you know are this big they are jurisdictional weightless so it's not like a Statewide weightless right if if shanki sort of you know or to go on a wayist tomorrow it depends on the jurisdiction where you live so it's not
that at least means that there's across those 20 offices but I know that's been something we been looking at in terms of um uh you know Okay who wants to be on there who doesn't um we also just have no idea how long it will take just because we have only about two to three
months attrition data to suggest it but you can imagine if you're a family on this program and you see this enormous growth and demand that you know result effective like I'm going to take you know I'm going to stay on this and and and participate if if I if I
can um okay so mixed delivery um this is we have about the budget funds about 2530 slots across the state uh including our Innovative cry share slots that are in Susan's area of of the state we have
about just another thousand kids on the weight list again 16% of these are confit and todders this is just a really telling statistic for the Commonwealth in terms of we've got working parents of
infants and toddlers who um uh are just finding it very hard to afford and and find high quality uh ECC um again this is new at one point earlier we shared the commission we thought it was over 2000 we've gone through very carefully we want to make
sure that by the time we get to the general assembly that these are unduplicated actual kids uh in need of services so there's been that work uh our team has done some preliminary analysis across tcsp and MD weight list and really see very little overlap so
these are real kids and families this not just the he would you be interested in this program you get folks who are eligible know which program they want to they just simply can't afford something that cost more to college um without some support from from the
government um we shared them with the commission what we know about VPI and again all of this is the goal of through informing financing going forward the VPI situation looks a little different um these numbers come in and in for all enrollment um
and I'm always thinking about how what is the simplest way to explain this rather complicated section of code and budget but basically the formula says this is how many slots your state is required to fund each year then the
state makes some adjustment based on here's what we think will be the kind of rate of nonparticipation right where we should you know we don't think it's actually going to be used that sort of prudent budgeting and as you'll notice if you look at FY 23 and FY 24 as
compared to fy2 although the formula said more slots the state largely based on a few years of giving back 20 to30 million do said what do we actually think we're going to need an FY 25 and reflected that in the
non participation so the state funded 24842 slots now when we then put out and said to divisions who do you think wants these you have parents ready to go they said yes we do we have those 24,840 and we have another 3,400 slides
we went back and forth the team kind of worked with the school divisions to sort of look at their last three years of say where are their real kids versus these are slots that you might be able to serve kind of came up with a final uh allotment that put it in just over 24,000 with the assumption that kind of
comeing under based on enrollment through October 1st you've only enrolled 23,123 kids in slots um so that's slightly under even what was budgeted and obviously significantly under what uh divisions asked for and even further
under than what the formula spit out so a couple of flots here one is it means that um you know the weightless number which was a number reflected by school divisions is probably not the same type of weight list that you see in the chalk
yourself SE the mix delivery programs right well we still see some very aspirational School divisions who would like to serve more kids that you know in terms of who's actually you know making a decision to be in this program to participate when you look at actual enrollment come fall is lower than that
we do have late enrollment so this number will go up slightly between now and the time of session probably put it around 24,000 but that represents at least as you compare it to the last three years the closest time ever that we sort of said here's what the state budgeted and here's what actually want
and prefer so that is that is good news in addition this last line says and this number has dropped as we' kind of finalized these enrollment but this line says that if we only end up at 23130 kids or 24,000 kids right with
late enrollment which would Rec sort of would represent portions of slots that if there's dollars that are unused that thanks to a law that was passed last year that the department would be able to reallocate those into Child Care
Subsidy slots so again this kind of effort of like how do we budget differently to anticipate either what the actuals are the kind of actual need is based on what we served in the past and then this ability to reallocate which was set forth in Senate Bill 54
and 419 so that does not require a decision by this body or the board it's kind of codified in law but that there is a possibility um this year and we sort of shared this the that if there are dollars that are not going to be used by BPI we didn't take any dollars away from
school divisions but if there are dollars that are going to go unus that the department has the uh authorized ability to reallocate them based on Parental preference which would go towards that um 11,000 kid uh weight
list small not you know is not going to solve for the entirety of it even closed but still I think important in terms of trying to work with our governor and our general to make sure the dollars follow the here while we're also trying to sort of you budget thoughtfully so that's
kind of where we are so significant weight list on childcare subsidy significant weight list on mixed delivery close on BPI not going to leave tens of millions of dollars on the table and in fact might have the ability to reallocate slightly while being able to
meet the actual need uh for three and four year olds in reg preal ins programs okay so in light of that what the group grappled with and what I'll try to do to sort of share today is they basically said How do we make the dollars go further because having 11,000
or a thousand kids on a weight list is is is a challenge for the state so one of the things that we talked about a lot was family co-payments and we moved to a flat rate structure during the pandemic they went away for a while we moved to a flat weight structure which now we
represents just over two and a half % of families who pay are are contributing um but the federal law allows us to go up to 7% might we sort of think about slightly increasing payment so that we could put you know serve more kids right because you think it's a pretty big clay
if you go from paying a co-payment to pay full cost of 14 15 16 17,000 and so that uh a lot of analysis was done um I will spare you all of the permutations but you move to the next
slide um basically where the kind of group landed is you know a very serious contemplation of either moving to a 7% for all contemplating kind of doubling the current flat rates and then potentially adding either you know a equivalent kind of co- payment for
families that earn money but that are under the poverty line or doing something more simple like a contribution of $5 a month of those families so that is all on the table as we go into the general assembly and what you see is that that has the capacity to
free up you know a pretty significant number of slots that's a th600 3,000 slots somewhere in that in that range so sort of thinking through um you is that uh is that sort of something that the state might want to do to make the
dollar go further okay next slide please the other one that came up and we were tasked officially to look at was job search and so the kind of we've heard from the jaar study to some of our colleagues in our local offices to others that um you know
if you are looking for a job you are eligible for Child Care Subsidy if you lose your job during the course of the year you are eligible to you can stay eligible for Child Care Subsidy and have some time to look for an additional job the concern that came up during the commission is whether or not we need to
time limit that because again um if you've got somebody who's lost a job and they're sort of out there for n months benefiting you've got you they could be also taking care of children while you've got you know 9,000 or 11,000 kids on a weight list who are actively
working now and so the feds do allow you to time limit job search you have to F at least 90 days um uh and the key thing this is only for folks that um are only job searching if they're a sole parent
or if it's a dual parent household where one person is only job Searchers and you're working even a little bit then you're not the group so we found out that there's a possibility of probably you know the challenge here isort of estimating this when it would involve a
policy shift that might also change people's practices right so think about the way to think about this is oftentimes you know depending on you sort of setting your duration of unemployment like there's a remarkable correlation between when your unemployment ends and when you find a job right so that there's you know you
could shift this policy and why we might have had 1,500 households in this category last year if we tell them that you have to find a job you might have some of those households would stay on the program because they would you know had change different practices might
find a job more quickly might take a job more quickly is kind of the consideration here so but Bart we think that you could maybe free up about a thousand slots um by time limiting job search um uh that just the the big question mark here is if you change this
policy would that change people's practices which which case they wouldn't vacate the slots but instead they would stay in them but that's our kind of our best estimate based on the data we've got as part of this uh conversation with the commission we're just s sharing some highlights here uh there's this real
interest in where are people working right and kind of the the who is this program benefiting this and one of the classic Tales of government and creating Data Systems and you know open-ended Fields one field that one might not want
to make open-ended would be employer so um the the way in which we understand the employer of the 40,000 plus uh kids and families on subsidy is by an open-ended field so I joked with the commission I've never seen Virginia TX spelled so many different
ways BT ba T Virginia Tech V Tech uh the whole thing that University in blackburg now uh hokey land and like the whole yeah it so we had some incredible colleagues at UA who helped us make sense of this but this gives you a sense
when we talk about Working Families like these are the types of jobs that ccsp families are reporting so the that like significant portion are health and health care which would make sense in terms of where you have moderate low-income jobs where you just cannot do
that and also care for a child there's a trend here you'll see most of these are not remote work um that's followed by education child care a little bit of a surprise to us 97 of the 131 school divici um were listed as employers for folks of CH Subs so I don't know that's
something you think about that like our our ability to have enough uh teachers and Staffing really kind of instruction leads and bus drivers and cafeteria you know some significant portion of them are there kind of thanks to um support
and partner from childcare self-state program the other one you know Manufacturing construction agriculture retail Amazon no surprise or largest single employer by Walmart good line CVS and Walgreens uh food and then another
one that you wouldn't necessarily think of but just so much local government and again if you look across this list uh just many many in-person jobs um that you just cannot take care of a baby or
toddler and do this job so we this was a really insightful from the governor to the commission everybody's been really struck by sort of both thinking about you know are there opportunities for different Partnerships with employers but then also realizing that s of some significant portion of our health
education and government systems which are you know uh significantly public funded also run on or supported by Child Care childcare subsy are they in like s here have the high percentage of that why they're first done not necessarily it could be it's just a sort of picking
out a set of names uh honestly this go back to some of the things where like we just had this list last year in the commission and folks didn't kind of pay attention and then we start to add the names in terms of like oh interesting or even like education like it was for us this like Insight of wait a second this
isn't just a few schoolis like we're like literally this is like every single School Division um and you again think about like you know for at least you know many of these industries these are the very seeing ones where there's some pretty acute pressure on Workforce I know we're
feing lots of Staffing shortages in healthare we've heard that you know the seem is true in education um you know and and you know certainly when I go to the post office they surrounded by advertisements to come the post
off um okay the uh other key area there's three lights the stool co- payments job search and then thir M be attendance and so just this idea again when you have so many eligible kids of family sitting on a weit list how do we
think about maximizing the slots that are part of the program and so we know attendance matters um we know that there's some research done much more research on K2 than early child but there is some research on early child and child care that shows that getting
kids to come not only has a benefit in terms of their participation in the program but also helps build strong habits and practices and is tied to uh lower absentees and even through Middle School in terms of um some of these these practices you move to the next
slide you'll then see that uh and this is very reminiscent I thought of Dr Nelson and some others who were at the conversation about licensing around the various reasons why children may not be able to come and there is one of my less favorite you know your stomach turn a little bit and all the
various communicable diseases that keep keep children out of child care we want to keep sick children out of child care but what we decided to do is present to the commission let's compare it to prepandemic Norms let's not have a debate about how often an infant should
or should not be sick um uh but let's really look at you know how our current numbers compared to pre pandemic again with the assumption that you know for most and in many ways 23 24 is like we were fully kind of out of some of those
this kind of pandemic uh uh kind of affected sort of Trends in terms of attendance what you see is we have just really the curve has shifted this is true for K12 this is true for Early Childhood there's just less of potentially an emphasis on attendance
there also might be more barriers I don't think we know exactly why we see you know more chronic absenteeism um in in 23 24 as compared to uh 201819 it does correlate with age right so if you look at the bottom of
this of this slide like kindergarten ERS are more absent than fifth graders than third graders and that would make sense and Dr Nelson give us an entire entire talk on immunology and the immune system and why that is um as could Becca and Aon and Dave the parents and children
under the age one um uh but you know I think what we we we do realize that there's a need to kind of get back to a lower number of absences U that looks like where was a prepandemic and I know
to look at what is going on for these families and households that are you know missing a lot of time right so chronic absenteeism is 20 26 days a year it's just a lot of of um of of a program to miss between them 10% I think this is
something I Head Start has been a leader in in terms of saying like Hey we're not say we gota kick you off the program tomorrow we need to understand truly believe that you'll benefit from being here what are the barriers that families are facing and how do we make um that we're supporting you to overcome
those barriers and be you know in in programming this is the strip down move to the next slide abbreviated set of data slides uh there was tons and tons they are all on the Virginia early childood Foundation website if you I always you know like to be aild link so
I just Google it you Google commission Early Child BCF it'll pop right up all the slides all the recordings are there I we wanted to sort of wrap with the kind of this body understanding and of where the commission left it as we kind of go into the legislature so I think
addressing the weight list particularly for working families with kids under the age of five is it needs to be a top priority real sort of consensus around that I think there is a a willingness to explore kind of increasing co-payments and kind of balancing between what
families can afford and you know how we can make the dollars the state Dollar in particular go further this um you know and you don't have to apply the same kind of you know uh methodology across the grps we think about cover some of our most low-income families we did hear from private providers who said
oftentimes like we bear the brunt of that like if we can't collect those co- payments from families who can't afford them um and so being kind of trying to sort of strike that right balance of you know if you charge a really high co-payment but the provider can't collect it well then it's our private
providers right who cannot uh take those dollars and then in turn childcare teachers get paid less so kind of just understanding the kind of the connections there on job search I think there's a desires or be reasonable we want families to be working we want to kind of have the right incentives on the
other hand if there's an extraordinary circumstance could we provide some flexibility to account for that um on attendance really working on reducing barriers um and increasing attendance and then I think the other thing that continues to come up is you know we
still are facing challenges around Supply Child Care deserts how do we um just been it's been a system that's been um sort of operating scarcity and how we look at particularly thinking about business and philanthropy and others right how do we think about s more
sustainability sustainable funding for for the system let me pause there are there questions about the Commission in terms of next steps as you're considering your questions so these two reports will go to the general assembly um I think what
you will see similar to what you saw last year is that there will be again if you look at it now it's called section 12510 of the education budget but like this is going to be the place right and where decisions are going to be made about our system going for and so
whether that's co-payment expectations you know whether that's expectations around job search whether that's the number of slots that are going to be funded or how they're allocated all of that will be in 12510 so noting um it's not kind of in code so it's not going to kind of you know if you think of Schoolhouse Rock and how bill becomes
the law a little bit different from that but if you think about the governor's budget announcement to the budget kind of his first proposed budget coming out to the kind of committee meetings to the conference budget watching that budget as really child state would be important
because that will likely uh set the parameters for doe DSS and our local departments as we think about this programs next year questions about that yes thanks two questions so currently in Virginia on job search
there is no and what we be an example of a family that's in the [Music] program M get this kid multing parents ever off for some reason
l so a very small percentage so I think from the last month it was like 2% um know 4.4% when hundreds say are moving on to the program so that is attrition if if a family no longer needs the
service or moves there's a little bit of trickiness with the federal law around say you don't want it like the law still says we're supposed to offer it to you for the full 12 months although we don't do that so that's another story but some somebody I well well we're in violation
because basically if you call and say you're off the program we take you off the program somebody else on but be just good you know um and um that is happening very very low rates of attrition um right now a part of it makes sense you think all infant hler
participation and that you just you know you still need that they're a three-year-old and and and a four-year-old and then I just think a lot of these families are they just relying on this even through the four-year-old and three and four-year-old ages because they just need the full day full year um but the
attrition rates with monitary from very L second question on the commission I know there area members they the ones who have G out there to make this happen in the budget yes so there are um there are members of both parties there
senators and there's uh delegates they have they participated very actively throughout the commission meetings and the work groups um and there kind of and there's a steering committee that also includes um a a delegate so that will
some of their kind of where there was consensus will be reflected in those reports I would imagine you'll also hear from them throughout the session officially the the groups that tend to be most influential on the budget are
the governor house appropriation Senate finance and then whatever delegates and senators are named for contract right so if you remember in the budget process the two budgets come out there's a set of votes from both sides who are named in conference that may or may not be on House Appropriations Inc of Finance
those are the folks that are going to be most influential it'll be interesting to see if any of those also have to be commission MERS which is a little bit different that you're not going to likely see a bunch of laws related to this it will all play out in the budget process because of the way section
125 process thank you questions yeah I'm sorry so when they talk about by increasing the co-pay that means that um it was allow for more subsidy slots so is it that the
co-ag are increased they go to the care center but then the child care center they're pulling some of the subsidy money they would get into the co-pay filling that I'm trying to like how are they yeah the best way to think about it mathematically um is think of the we we
take the co-payment off the top right so we s of think of the co-payment not as like oh the state collects this right and you know so we basically say we look at which kids you're serving your Center a and then we look at their income or
and then we take that off the top right so that's the sort of the concern that providers have of said to us it's like that the the OWN to collect coopay is 100% on the providers right so if we were to say everybody's going to pay $15
a month you so here's your you know $3 check right because you're in charge of getting the vast majority of of of of of the money so that is really important to knowe from the flip side it also means we work really closely in these charts reflected to accurately reflect what we think we can discount because if we also
say okay we think we're going to Discount this amount but end up having to Discount more right um or less because of uh the actual incomes of families that come in we could run out of money as well right so or you know so that's the other thing is like really trying to sort of think
through what do we think it'll be the other part that makes us just just even that much more complicated is it's not equally situated so the law also says you can't increase parents co-payments over the year and so even though what
you might imagine think back about those professions that were in a significant number of those folks don't necessarily have the same income right you've heard about Amazon and scheduling and so your income can go up it could go down right depending on your hours so if you come
to us and your income is here we charge this co- payment if you happen to make more the way the federal law says it's like actually you can't charge something right so we also have to be really careful in our analysis because if we assume you're GNA be here because that's you endit the law but here's when here's when you reported your co-payment then we will get you know we will not have
enough money to go around however if your income goes down like we are supposed to lower your Cod payment right and then you'll Noti then we you know we can't go above you know so it's just it is a TR to sort of you know reflect that we operationalize the
flat rate rather than the percentage of income partly to sort of create a little bit more stability for providers because if you have to deal with an actual percentage of their income and that can go up and down all the time and so the idea is that you're going to range
you're plat r that doesn't allow you to kind of capture every last possible dollar but does provide for a little bit more stability and so I think that will be kind of part of the debate as we get into the general assembly do we want to kind of keep the Simplicity which maybe's not Pure maximization or do we
want to go to Pure maximization the risk with that is it's just a lot more you're also than spending a lot more money to sort of certify kind of small amounts of co- payment so it's kind of it's there there sort of advantage and disadvantages to both we put out data on both options those are as our elri Lal
contemplate that Jennifer I will add to that that Center's First Choice is not to increase things only because our experience has been it's very difficult
already now possibly and we want to do something time to possibly go to at Le the way one at the same time remarks could so we're gonna uh if there's
additional questions feel free to let us know and again um I think you know the the the good news even though is as we sh there's just some pretty challenging dat in front of us the good news is that the commission and with its bipartisan
leadership really has elevated these issues and so I can't think of a time even in my experience here in Virginia where so much of this data has been out and available you going into the governor's budget and the general assembly and sort of also available to
stakeholders and others um you know across the state as folks are grappling with I think CLK just described a very well these are just trade-offs right I'm really sort of thinking about how do we make the most of dollars how do we sort of look at actual parent demand you know
and sort of make make sense of them I would say as we move into our next topic that part of the reason that more parents than ever before are interested um in this programming is because of some of the data next slide that we are
seeing um when you think about you know our effort to measure and improve quality of across the state so very exciting uh a month and two weeks ago uh we launched Early Childhood quality. doe.
virginia.gov enormous effort by our bq5 and our data technology teams within the division of ear child to make this website happen 3,121 site quality profiles that represent every city and county in the
um common well so this was just huge thanks to the work of our ready region Partners we sort of you know tried to make sure there were no surprises as we rolled out this information um and if we go to the next slide you'll see a lot of resources for
sites for regions for families and for the general public I think since we've watch we've had over 39,000 views of the website um as well as had over 850 data download so if you want all the data in the state we put it
up there um after you finish watching the commission if you want on your Saturday night download data play with some Excel all is available on our website but um really exciting um uh moment for Early Childhood we some of you have heard this if you heard me
talking all about this if we move to the next slide just the kind of the key talking points here so just really an exciting moment for the sector we did fewer than a thousand I think it was fewer than 900 class observations in
2019 and last year Virginia completed just under 128,000 of those observations infant toddler mixed age preschool child care Head Start start Family Day homes um schools uh we produced uh including ex already 100% of the observations in
the spring so the 3,121 F profile you if you think back to when the law was passed I don't know that anybody thought that that was was even possible um the uh along with that it's not just sort of information about
these sites but it's kind of information that parents and partners and stakeholders have never had before there's 28,000 observations represent 2.1 million minutes of insights into what our kids are experiencing and
that's just very few States any have that level of information down the classroom level about what kids are experiencing and so that's really exciting Chris and the team just completed nine data deep Dives um you
know hosted by Susan on Southwest but you know hundreds of slides uh kind of going through what does this data tell us what does this mean how do we use this to think about Improvement and why this is so important in addition to millions of men of feedback for our
teachers is it just helps everybody see the system differently so I can get an example of emailing a superintendent saying like hey like here are your 10 sites like these seven very well scored above the state average these two I
might watch and this one like if you weren't using curriculum but otherwise really need some attention right and it's just they've not really been able to sort of see it that way what they focused on before was like do I have a licensed teacher do I have the right number of kids are they using curriculum and now like we're giving everyone data
that says okay we're going to to go a step further than those inputs and actually give you that precise data on you know where your educators are doing very well and where there's opportunities for um Improvement 98% of sites met expectations which is
just really exciting we have 51 sites that um are in need of support and we've already with our partners uh through kind of f coaching consultation are already working on site Improvement planning so we're not taking their license are taking their funding but we
are um uh providing kind of inperson intensive coaching to support Improvement there uh and then we had a number of sites 79 sites that exceeded expectations and that truly means that they're National exemplars I talked to Susan and their colleagues and I said
yeah these sites that these are not only leeding away for your region but for the country the highest quality interactions using quality curriculum truly models and those were in eight of our nine so just really exciting and um you know the
high if you go to the data list the highest scoring site uh site Statewide um was a family child here s in norgia I also will note that the lowest scoring site or the family talk not not the same abely this just gives you a really
different way about thinking about the system less stereotypes about the name on the outside of the building or the funding source you can be the absolute highest quality that family Child Care sort of scored higher in its tool right than than you know the vast majority of other programs on the other hand um you
know we just really got to focus on what is happening in the classroom level if we want to change experiences for kids and move and you know on unschool ready so really exciting knowing we've got those examplars across the state um and as I said before you know I think if you
tie all these things together having this data having this information having what I've called an Apples to Apples comparison all of our programs it becomes a very different value proposition for our elected officials as you think about investing in those slots because you can then track that this
amount of money goes into this many slots that are programs that are meeting our expectations and that we can specifically look and see the impact of those of those programs so huge moment for the sector um and you know in particular I think for our our programs
that might not be in school buildings but that provide high qual high quality o child education and just this moment to kind recognize all of them I often say when I spoke to the media this is not about babysitting right babysitters don't get three-digit scores right with
like this kind of riger around them this is truly about Early Education it happens in all sorts of settings and by putting this data out and doing the work that the folks around the table and on the zoom did really elevates our sector from the whole and I think that's a little part of the story of why so many
families particularly for little little ones are interested in that questions about B5 it's also very mobile friendly but we see 70% in computers 30% so again about third of our folks but the young folks out there were like
you know in between your Tik toks like let me just check out yeah right exactly all right so then uh moving right along here on our on our update um we wanted to make sure I think s we talked a little bit about previously about the some of the changes to the
childcare and development block Ram we want to make sure everybody was aware um I know our headst start colleagues are but you know sometimes we talk a lot about state funded programs here and those are the ones where you know the state provides the dollars and the state sets the rule we always want to be
inclusive of Head Start and as we think about the charge of this body which is thinking about advice and recommendations for our board making sure that this group is also familiar with some of the changes that are happening in um Head Start that might sort of affect as we think about qb5 or
guidelines uh in in the future so um there uh are so the Head Start performance standards are kind of the lengthy uh rules and regulations that affect all Head Start programs um and that they for the last year have been
kind of focused on on some Ru making um to address I think a set of concerns that kind of came up during the pandemic and also the need to sort of modernize some the Head Start rules okay so if you move to the next slide please um this
gives you and I've got our incredible director of Head Start collaboration M to je is here at the table we get detail of questions but the um you'll see that we we the rules went out there were some new standards there were changes to
existing requirements um there's a goal I think somewhat similar to what we do with our health and safety regulations to sort of think about best practices and what we know now in 2024 as compared to Prior years we're 1300 public comments um and then uh thinking through
um what are the changes that possible and then what is the enactment for those changes um all work that happened in the last year the three big buckets we move to the next slide um Workforce supports
mental health support and quality improvement and I would probably say similarly not to speak on behalf of all of our grantees but similar to what we've heard we talked about everything from recognized V5 to some of the proposed legislation like the workforce continues to be the biggest challenge
for Head Start attracting retaining quality teachers being able to you know fill every funded enrollments slot because you have enough Educators and uh and assistance to do that is is priority number one I think number two and we've heard this anecdotally is continuing to
address the challenges some of the behaviors that children are presenting um you know now as compared to years prior and even thinking of the mental health supports for educators and the other staff and then as always like all of us focused on improving School
Readiness and improving quality so the on the workforce supports um basically and I won't get too much in the weed because there's still some of these things that are being determined but the gist of this is this idea of uh
the federal government would like to ensure that Head Start granes are paying their Educators on parity with what's happening in schools um you know they an interest in kind of requiring more bachelor's degree over time making sure
um that uh there are there's adequate compensation and benefits um and that the workforce is well support so there's a lot of details about how that works um but generally the goal here is to better
compensate Educators and think about both financial compensation and benefits um while recognizing and we've all talked about before that payroll for most of our Head Start granes is also the single biggest line item right and
so this kind of how does how do they how do we make this happen noting that they still have to comply with ratios they still have a ton of quality standards um and uh you know you got to figure out how to to to to make that work financially and I think that what we'll
have to see over time is the extent to which if the funding is there I think this is made possible funing is not there becomes you know more challenging and so that kind of this is something to watch but the goal is one this body has discussed when com to cost and qualities
how do we more competitively compens our Educators um and think of sort of comparable goalposts in the sector in terms of cable teachers the next one will be summary of mental health supports so again thinking
about um how do we ensure that our grantees are integrating efforts around mental health thinking about sort of supports for mental health getting advice through advisory committees on this um and thinking about um
you how do you bring more support for the behaviors that um adults are finding challenging I think at the same time there's also an acknowledgement that we need to have a strength based approach to this and so making sure that we're not putting any of this on the shoulders
of you know three and four year olds who are facing incredibly challenging circumstances but recognizing that this is a really important um as we go forward uh and then if you look at quality improvements um he there a
few set of things on things some of which look similar to what we've heard before but I think there's continue to be some issues where um kids are in uh dangerous circumstances and there's not uh expedient reporting so clearly
defining that um making sure that you uh 10% of enrollment is children with identified disabilities development or special needs um thinking about kind of recruitment and enrollment in 2024 as compared to earlier looking at and again
you'll see these things are at times challeng to do all together you also want to limit your case load for your family support worker um but that often those case loads got bigger when you're trying to kind of put more teachers in the classrooms right so kind of all these things relate to each other um and
then um the other one is looking at uh places particularly places that have become more affluent however the cost of living is very high we often give the example Northern Virginia where yes it looks like that salary is higher than other areas of the state but also the
rent is more expensive the transportation is more expensive and so trying to continue to prioritize serving our most low income and in need families but also saying that there could be different ways of thinking about those income cut offs particularly if you're in an area where housing is very
expensive so um you know you might be just of all that income cut off on paper but if you're paying 50% of your income for um housing then you're not in a place where you can afford any any to pay for okay let me pause there or Shi or
the start post maybe you add to okay so again no no action needed by this body in the short-term future just important to understand how some of these shifts will ultimately affect a pretty significant portion of our of our
stakeholders okay oh sorry just a quick comment on the mental health supports I really appreciate that being lifted up and highlighted and I would just in grous to think about that for all of our environments not just Head Start R applies for anyone in any care environment and then um working on the
the Virginia Mental Health Access program Early Child of expansion I will say that the number one reason for a call for a under six is expulsion from Child Care preschool and and what are the behavioral or medication or psychiatric supports that are needed for that child and I think that's just an
opportunity for our fields to kind of collaborate no and I think the other I'm not sure if it's true for vmap but I think this is also something we continue to monor not necessarily seeing sort of St differences in the data but I will say anecdotally this is something that
continues to to come up in terms of um uh children's behaviors uh executive function and uh uh you know suing the pandemic something the screen something both um but it is uh it continues to be a really emerging
issue and Dr nson it's across all settings all right the um next item and our our last update item is we wanted to kind of give you a uh work in progress update on some of
the work that Jeff and team are doing around um evaluating our reservice training and so this is just an example where um a law was passed last year requiring the be to review the preservice training looking at the
appropriateness of the training and then really thinking about you know in 2024 with what we know now are there ways to better customize that you know an example given is you know how much time does the um Na school counselor of nine year olds you know need to spend on on
on diapering jef always reminds me that there could be a special need situation in which there is you know a need but you know thinking through kind of how do we adapt with time being you know one of scarcest resources to S think differently about this this training um
and you know including kind of excluding portions that are just not relevant right you know uh for for uh those providing care um for kids in a certain age so we also know that um the uh there was a jail art report sort of in part of
that jail report also said hey take a look at this make sure it's relevant it's useful it's applicable um and then thinking about you know is there just a better way to match training to roles and and responsibility
again for those who are in the work group and remember are lengthy meaning there's a lot in our regulations right and so it's always this Balancing Act of like you know how much do you cover everything noting that training is really the key way to get that to everywhere to everyone rather you know
on the flip side um you know some of it does feel less relevant if you don't have a child it meets those kind of criteria in your in your sitting that point time all right if we move to the next slide please what we'll do just today is give you an update on where we are on this process this is a little bit
of the history of pre-service training some of it relates to Federal requirements that came in about a decade ago around sort of saying here's who needs this training uh then we uh wanted to figure out what would be a low cost
way of doing that or no cost really but beyond your time so working in state better kid care for an online version of that um trying to update that annually um although it's you know quite quite
large now uh and and some uh there have been some concerns about sort of you know the the kind of the vastness and the UN buiness of of the content um and then uh so it's 10 hours um launched
that in 2017 and then um it now uh that's been since 21 a requirement you know for providers just with the idea s we all caregivers all have complet that 90 days of employment again with the goal being that these are you know
really sort of tied closely to the regulations for health and safety this is the uh most efficient way to ensure that um that you know across the board that that anybody working in our child Center childes uh would be familiar with
this with that in mind um we wanted to make sure that we would as a first step would gather feedback on on what was working what is not what you would like to improve uh we charged Jeff and the team with going out in the field and
they held four Regional listening sessions again you know kind of distinct this is not the time we came out and said you here the 95 things we want you to know here's all the data that's you know that's why Jeff did not me oh there's all the data um but really about
listening and hearing from um providers we did uh remind your as ready connection we sort of did memo out to all of our licens day centers um subsidy approved programs and homebased subsidy programs we had very low participation
nine participants um again um you know and you know try figure out you know how do we get feedback from folks um considering that sort of this is required from all for all the programs and so you know and we know for example that you know we track daily how many
folks not only receive connections but open it so if you don't open it we know we know um but it's again it's over 177,000 and you know pretty significant number of openings everybody got an email so trying to kind of again you know we got some valuable feedback but
also realizing we need to go a step further and getting um surveys providers so we sent that out uh July to November uh kept survey open for uh just over three months three months and then we've got about 50 responses there so TR to
going to take that feedback uh again use that to improve um uh we go from here next slide please this get you the the question so again find to keep the survey very simple um what did you complete you what here did you complete
it what would you find most useful or less what else would you like to see included and three suggestions again in this case using open m Fields right so that we could make sure that we were casting as wide a net as as as possible um I think you know this is an
update item so we're not asking for any kind of action or endorsement but we remain open to feedback I think we we thought we would get a little bit more uh feedback and kind of comment on this than we have we appreciate the 503 post who included the survey as well as those
nine that kind of came in person um and just realized that they're you know want keep hearing from people what do you like what would you change as we can go back to um uh and sort of bre thing how do we make this training work better for
uh for providers and for care groups just one quick point of clarification this is not the three-hour annual update a lot of people get confused about that this is the pre- service once you do it it's done you're good to go you got your
certificate and then there's some annual stuff this is the pre-service thus the reason why we ask what year you took it because you might have taken it in 2017 and there have been a few tweaks since then um but trying to engage while we ask something
the survey questions from a data perspective so if you go forward um well I I cannot jump in comment on the Readiness connection I was going to say this at the end but probably down that obligation is outstanding I think who does that or who
writes that but um you mentioned how many are open can you track how many times they're reopen absolutely right that is a outstanding source of communication so thanks for doing it's work
I participants I'm sorry you only like a lot of work a lot of travel participant I think the reason is it's one of the reasons I didn't go sorry um I think the reest from the field is very simple and it's just that it needs to be shorter
and it needs to be relevant to the job and y'all already know that's that's the fits right there a shorter training six hour training I see look on an out face when all the other training I say and then and there then again 90 days Mo but
um it's a lot a shorter training Rel job responsibility there's F and I think that's why didn't come because you walk in and you say that we're out in 30 seconds and you're done and you're done quick things one we had already had this
one on radar before the general assembly so just want to let you know from eag perspective do video perspective who kind of saw this as the writing wall and new coming over from DSS who wanted to look at that um something I did not know
until doing research is the feds actually recommend this to be a 30-hour treat it out there 30 hour they actually reced 30 hour training I'm sorry is that the assumption that there is no other
training given or that is in addition to any other it's basic it's the assumption that anybody coming into Child Care knows nothing because unfortunately sometimes that is the case you know especially you know college kids and things along those
lines so one of the things we're trying to think through is you know this is contract you know we have to do a contract with PSU so there's procurement issues of is there a way to have maybe more than one one that's geared mostly for school agers one that's Geared for all ages um because one of the things we
struggle with is I get my pre- service training only in school age and then I start working with infants and PS and you miss out on the part so maybe there's two certificates there's a school Ager there's a preschool and younger and there's an all the above um but also trying to balance the family
day home side of the house you know it doesn't make sense for Family Day home just to do school agers but maybe they do so these are all the things we're kind of thinking through and getting lots of good data to figure out how can we do it one can we do it two how to do it and three how do we do it as quickly
as possible so kind of three things we're thinking through as we go through list um and so as we think about that and I appreciate that feedback par so we've got the feedback from the sessions the survey response say we also got this came up in public comment and so we've
got several hundred public comments across some of the recent um standards and general procedures so we keep all of those public comments and so Jeff and and the team have pulled that so it's a good another good source um as we think about kind of the totality of the
changes um we'll continue to make sure we're checking every box for fed and not shifting don't worry you that's what I always worri about like we would like you to review this instead of coming back with eight hours 30 hours not gonna do that um I know I know
I know so true um uh we are going to bring it back to this group um and again engage you um on what was s the direction that we're going to be moving in I think think about this in terms of short and long term um what can we do with the current vendor and then if the
if the ASP is larger than that because we need to think you know differently them ex signicantly changing the scope of that work we probably will face and need to do a competitive procurement um one other piece I would you know I open
the floor for kind of comments on this this too if we think about s what are some of the updates will be available by this fall and the we should go directionally you I think you know the world has sort of shifted in recent
years and there's still some really open questions around how do you best support adults to learn I mean I you know I will say on the flip side as a state employee I do a lot more virtual training um there are advantages and
disadvantages to that I'm not saying it's my favorite content in the history of content on the other hand I really do appreciate that I can do it whenever and wherever versus you know when I first started in state government like be had to go in person and be in a room and
like you know as you might imagine my personality myate C right like one of those people that does it at like one and a half time you know got it let's go take the quiz done um so uh I I think we're legitimately at that point right
where you're like you know I think we do still want it to be online even though I know this is I know this is something as we looked at the body of improvement things that we funded during the pandemic we swear they want in person and then they don't show up you know and this is just truly happening across the
board and so kind of really thinking through you know should we didn't give out kind of sounds crazy as you know games right that do it right is it just lecture is it that you can do it at one half time is that we don't care how much time you take but you complete the quiz
and it's more confidency based um you know we're we're open there trying to sort of sort out what's affordable doable shorter relevant also realizing that soon you know generationally a lot of these newer teachers going to come in
and be like cannot believe these boomers are going be sit and watch this like you know and it's just not how they learn um you you know and so again just really I'm I'm encouraging I know Jeff and the team have been supportive really trying to sort of think through you know
without making any of this too complicated but we we hear it needs to be shorter it needs to be relevant needs to be doable that's right it also has address the fact that particularly I've also heard from child care providers that the teachers were're hiring in 2024 are not not coming in with the same
Baseline knowledge that the teachers we were hiring in 2018 2019 right so we got to we got to sort of address that we want to keep our case Cas healthy and safe but um this is a place where we continue to remain open to feedback and we hopefully kind of bring something to
get to kick the tires with to a subsequent e meeting and then Ag and and that think differently about goal here is knowledge building you know how do we do that or relevant but also you build some
competencies that our educator that need to same any questions from our folks virtually comments there we do not have any questions in the chat does anyone have a question online feel free to come off mute
any other feedback on service stream I don't know if you feel like 50% of the math much children learn video games math right we do something else
all right well if there are no other um comments again we will move our voting item which is our approval of the minutes the next month um I believe is Le is there anything you want to share with the body about setting up dates for
next year yes um early December mid December you should receive the annual survey that should receive from us with tentative proposed dates we ask that you just when we send those dates around that you truly think about your availability because we'll take that as your initial RSC P for the year and then
we'll go from there about just confirming your status so again just ask that you're able to prioritize being a person and then we send the survey around completed um by the deadline so we can get the dates out and on the calendar and send to send to you all for
2025 as moving to Thanksgiving I just want to thank you around here because a lot of this incredible stuff that we see the whole all for a while it's a tribute to the that you all do every day so I do want you guys to know that those out in field
really do appreciate what you do and really moved early job education forward grateful for it so thank appreciate we have an extraordinary team At Doe we have extraordinary folks who work you know
across all of our our our Regional Offices to keep kids healthy and safe you know I think of our role as really folks to accelerate and Elevate though and the the hardest work in the system is that work that has done in programs
directly with kid and families and so I just think that we are we are all honored to be a part of this and to elevate your work um to make it known um and to ultimately kind of you know help it in guard the respect that it it
deserves but um so we very much appreciate that but also um you know just want to know that every you know one of the folks on our team has just such deep respect for the work that happens with little kids every single
day um and know how much CH for you guys to be here thank you guys thank you yes happy holidays and please go on the look out for the survey for next year and this meeting is aured at 39