--------- good afternoon everyone um thank you for um being here it's been a while since we've seen each other um so welcome to our Virginia Early Childhood Advisory Committee i'm Tra Franklin the current chair and welcome to those that are online as well um at this time we're
going to turn it over to Aaliyah who do our attendance which will give you directions on Monday good afternoon when we call your name please say whether you're if you're in the room you're present if you're online we will need you to state your rationale
for virtual participation whether um residence is more than 60 miles medical reasons uh to care for a family member with a medical reason or personal and we will also need to state your meeting location for instance if you're in Fairfax you can say
Fairfax jennifer Parish here clark Anders here sher Murman aaron Edmonson virtual More than 60 miles located in Reno Virginia
thank you uhhuh kristen Johnson here jack Franklin here melinda Langford Daryl Turner here Gina Wolfford here more than 60 miles Norton City Schools
thank you vivian McMahad here michelle H Howard uh here in Washington DC caring for um a family member medical reasons Miam Sheriff Bia Foster
Steve here Fairfax Virginia more than 60 miles Dr bergen Nelson Xander Woolberger here Elizabeth Yiannez hi I'm here um I'm in Abington Virginia
and the reason is for more than 60 miles thank you Christopher Quinn virtual uh more than 60 miles here in Harrisonenberg Virginia thank you valerie Rosari here wendy
Litzkcom holly McCartney here and Susan Patrick here thank you and Cheryl here thank you thank you to our exeicient members who are joining online and Shi I'll pass it
back to you all right thank you and I believe we do not have a forum um today and so I'm going to turn it over to Jenna at this point um yes absolutely so thank you everybody i'm Jenna Conway i'm our deputy
superintendent at early childhood and education um wanted to uh clarify that you have a uh revised agenda and I would like the permission of the chair to take a few minutes to talk about the
importance of forum and our effort together we do not have forum today in person and in in line with the open meetings law that means that we cannot take any votes or take any substantive action so we cannot approve the minutes
and we needed to remove the two items that you all would have uh we would have asked for your endorsement that is the item about BQB5 that is the item um related to u the the child day center
regulations i have tremendous respect for all members of this body this is not directed at any one individual but I also just need to take a moment to impart on everybody the seriousness of attendance um and really planning for
attendance this becomes a real challenge there's nothing that we can do um once we do not have forum we have called our attorneys we have said is there an exception we know folks are on virtually
but this just means that we get stuck fortunately in the case of EQB5 we are going to be able to take that to the May board and June board so we can reschedu and and we'll I'll talk about that in a minute but I just need to say on behalf
of everybody and we understand like due to the nature of the early child advisory committee we represent all of the sectors and early childhood it means that we have multiple people around the table including those closest to me who have left their centers left their homes
to kind of to be here today we know that folks leave the hospital space leave busy offices leave seeing clients to be here and it is just really problematic and we cannot make for them um we this is not a new phenomenon for
us and so my ask on behalf of this body is really and this is not at all directed for those who had to miss today had emergencies or had things come up my ask is really for all members as we leave today and go back is to please
reflect as we come upon you know some upcoming board meetings in May and June if you need to relinquish your seat because it is just impossible to sort of consistently be here you know this would be the time of year to do it right we
can fill it as I have noted for you all we have hundreds of individuals who want to be on this body um you know we want to make sure it is a broadly a body that is broadly representative i wish the law gave more flexibility particularly for folks as I
look at Dr wilford was very very far from here i know that Dr patrick traveled to kind of be here today it unfortunately just does not we can have a subset of virtual meetings but we are limited to the extent we can do that and we really want to have people from Norton from Northern Virginia from
Tidewater right from Southside from all over the state but the way that the law works it does mean even if you are farther from here that there's a certain number of times that you need to travel to kind of to be here and I understand
that that you know is is is a burden and I really don't want anybody to please understanding to take that that personally but what we have are situations like the ones we have today where we just can't get items done and if this happens again right if we we set
up an April meeting we don't have form again We're in an impossible situation we're holding up the work that affects over 3,200 public private sites across the state right just under 12,000 classrooms and 30 to 40,000 educators and so I know
that each of you takes this very seriously i deliver this message with the gentlest of of hands here but I also really want to ask people you know Aaliyah we try to schedule in advance in a way that works around people i know Leah does follow up after followup but
we just we have to get quorum guys we just have to get quorum and in-person forum or the minimum number of inperson um meetings that are are required you know per per year so this is not anyone individual if there were an individual you know you know me you know I'm a
direct person we'd be having a conversation this is truly directed at everybody as everybody has you know had to miss one or had something come up but as we go forward really two specific asks one please reflect on your capacity to kind of to be here and if it's not
possible that's totally fine we can have a conversation about that we can find somebody else right who can never fill your shoes but can at least be you know continue to have a broadly representative body I think you know that and then the second ask is to really you know to figure out what kind
of planning or backup planning is needed so that we can kind of when we have these very few in-person meetings that we can get warm so that we can make the work go on we try and if you think think about even point earlier we try to minimize the meetings right or put as
much as possible in them but there are things that legally you all as the body right we've had this the reason for this law and for this body is that there's just no way the board of education of Virginia is setting the constitution so there's just
no way to make sure that we have pediatricians and providers public private right those who take subsidy those who don't the faith-based programs after school programs like the broad representation the business members right the community organizations that
broad representation our board looks to this body before it makes the decision right and most of the things nearly all of the things that you have endorsed the board then quickly moves through but that is such a necessary step in the process and
if we don't have forms this body cannot make endorsement and if this body cannot make endorsements then we end up with huge gap all right that in in terms of the people who are actually affected by the early childhood decisions of the board are not having their voices truly
represented so again I apologize for starting off this afternoon's meeting with a lecture but I just need for this body to take seriously and to work with us and if if this is something that doesn't work in your life right now that's totally fine you don't have to
let us know immediately but we have got to make sure that we have form for the remaining meetings for this year and going forward so that we don't stop the the progress of the critically important policy work that goes to the the board of
education all right with that I'll turn it back to our chair for public comment thanks Jenna um public comments do we have any at this time we do not have any public comments we do not thank you all right um as Jenna mentioned you should have received all of your documents for
our meeting today via email um we do have a packed agenda piggyback off of um what Jenna mentioned we've done a lot of great work um particularly around the child care standards and we would love um to continue to see them move forward and all the great work that this body
does as the state early childhood advisory committee um so please um take what Jenna said to heart and seriously so that this body will not be the body that thought services and policy for doing our state systems um so with that
we will move on to membership update then perfect all right perfect segue thank you so um as a reminder this body endorsed and then the board of education uh ratified a staggering of
the terms for the early child advisory committee and the law was passed in 2020 everybody started at the same time and that created a challenge in terms of ensuring broad representation and continuity so you've seen a version of these slides before you saw them um last
spring um but just as a uh reminder that we are now at that kind of annual stage in the process where we are posting for a subset of positions so uh this is our uh phase two
um we broke it into three years um and so we have notified you if your term is expiring on June 30th of 2025 as a reminder um that if you're have not been notified if your position is not up for
this year that you would remain in your position you do not need to reapply until your position is posted again if you did were notified um that your that your term is expiring on June 30th then you will uh need to apply when those um
become open if to the point um that I made earlier around you recognize that uh due to whatever factor that kind of being part of the EPA act is not possible right now and you want to uh relinquish or give up your position or
we have had a couple of cases where people have taken uh professional opportunities that took them out of the early childhood sector and um uh that then we need to go on your spot you let us know we then kind of still keep that
spot uh on the initial timeline right so we're not gonna don't worry that you uh if you need to do that and that somehow uh alters or messes up the the staggered term limits next slide please uh this gives
you a sense of the uh the stag who's up for um applications here it's that blue row so there's a about a third of you are up this year um the that was be forthcoming soon and then the other
third will be we'll have the same conversation next March all right so where to go from here um as always we will announce a call for nominations so we put this out very broadly we put out in the education
update we put out connections there'll be plenty of notice in addition to the personal contact of current members um if you are interested and eligible you're eligible to serve a second time you may have to reapply if you're not interested that's fine you let Aaliyah or let us know um and we will take other
applications um help letting us know where you are helps as we think about really making sure that we're recruiting as I said before there are some positions for which we receive hundreds and hundreds of applications incredibly competitive there's others we might not and so if you let us know if you're not
interested that helps us think through how to make sure we're proceeding the right spots and then the uh we'll take all of this to the June board um for sort of final uh approval um and uh that
this the term date start on July 1st 2021 any questions about that one quick point of clarification and Aliah uh correct me on timing but the the positions didn't post the positions posted the form is live it was posted on
the VOE website on the advisor committee page it's in the Virginia Educations Update newsletter it went out in readiness connections yesterday so there's multiple places where you could find it and if you have any questions please feel free to email me and the application is due by 5:00 PM um next
Friday March 28th and I also shared that in a email to everyone so you should have received that and I I think we'll also follow up with folks as a reminder ahead of the the deadline as well thank you any
questions about that all right so um our next item is an update item that is one where we think this is important information that the early childhood advisory committee should know it does
not require action because it is implementation of uh new code or new budget language but there are certain things that are strategic in nature that could impact this body as you are thinking about other decisions down the
road that we think um have some utility and for this one what we're going to do is walk you through uh the action we've taken um noting that we expect in the future that there may be some guidelines to this that would need the endorsement
of this body but at this point today this was not an action item this is a uh for your information update um but we think it is important for you to hear about this because there there is likely the possibility in the future of needing
to approve some guidelines to impact a process like this so last year in uh the general assembly the state passed a law that um mostly was known this was uh co-paid by
delegate Boliva and Senator Law was known around kind of discussing the importance of how we fund and allocate resources for early childhood and required a report in November that talked about kind of potential unmet demand there was also a really important
law uh line in that law that themes about the work and discussions that occurred in the early childhood training commission around how do we as a commonwealth make sure that we maximize all of the resources available to us as
this body knows we have a public private uh birth to five parent choice system that includes an array of options from programs in Clark and Jennifer's and Cheryl's um that might be supported by childcare subsidy or mixed delivery
school-based programs to early childhood special education to early Head Start and Head Start and one of the challenges that we experienced in Virginia is that even though through the budget Virginia made its best estimation around all
right how many dollars should go towards say prek how many dollars should go towards childcare subsidy or towards mixed delivery that sometimes there might be a mismatch where there is more demand from parents in this particular type of setting or program or area than
we might see in this particular program setting or area and the hard part is nobody has a crystal ball um and can predict that so you end up putting your best guess forward in the spring which we do every year i'll talk about in a second but then fall enrollment actually
happens and you might have some underutilization in one space but you couldn't literally move the dollars over and address unmet demand in in um in another space and so we were really excited to see this law passed it was a
bipartisan law again Democratic uh patrons the governor signed into law last spring and when we spoke with this body last year we thought because of the tightness of the budget um and because of what we were seeing with weight list that there might be a scenario in which
we didn't even use this loss right because we thought that every program was likely going to be overs subscribed but that didn't actually turn out to happen and I'll leave you next slide want you to walk through is what has occurred since this body met um and how
the department as required by law helped make sure that we serve more kids in this year by moving dollars from one program to another i'm going to try to not have everybody's eyes roll back in their head i'm looking at Darl right now describe
EPI funding you know requires a PhD um you know is the quickest way to put sleep if you uh if you're not feeling drowsy um but basically what this chart shows is that for the last few years
that the formula that is uh codified in the law spits out a number of slots that is far greater than those that are actually likely to be used by school divisions to serve kids with API um as part of that in recent years we've set
up a process where rather than just relying on the formula what we do is we say everybody every school division has to let us know uh how many kids how many three and four year olds they're actually going to serve um and that's the sort of the second column so the
formula is that first column the second column is sort of after we get those kind of requests what we sort of completed the budget it's that second column and I'll talk a second about the unmet request and then they go off and they serve the kids and we get fall
enrollment so again spits out a number initially that number is adjusted um we the department requests from all of the school divisions that serve the guy how many kids do you think we think you can serve um we let you know if you can
serve all those or slightly less depending on our kind of historical data and then you enroll the kids and by the end of that calendar year we know how many kids you actually serve in FY23 and FY24 the big takeaway here is that the number that the budget spit out and even
the adjusted number was significantly higher than the actual number of kids served right so we said to everybody they applied all the school divisions they applied for example in F23 right that we could serve upwards of 26,000 slots we said whatever slots you say you
could serve you what you see if you look over to actual enrollment is that we actually served only 22,444 kids that left a gap as you see of tens of millions of dollars right um
and that haven't those dollars do not go back towards early childhood those dollars are reverted to general funds that they go to solve for other parts of the budget the same thing happened as you see here in FY24 in
FY25 the budget was significantly adjusted down so you see the sort of the number of actual sort of budgeted slots you'll see is much lower about 24,000 here right we had for the first time ever we said to school divisions like Richmond and others like you may have asked for 27,000 slots but you could
only want 24,000 so we got to sort of say no to about just under 4,000 slots and still and we slightly overbudgeted right we sort of said if you got you know maybe you can serve those we'll we'll we'll do that with the assumption that not all slots will will be used and as you see here in the actual enrollment
even the final number that came in after we had fall enrollment in November and even late enrollment through the end of December you see it is still less right if you look at actual enrollment in that FY25 all the way to the right as compared to the budget slots you see
that it is less and then there's about $8.1 million across two rounds that would otherwise go unused or wouldn't go unused i would say we could unused by early childhood and would revert to general funds so couple of takeaways
before we move into what we do with this so we again as you've seen we are trying working very closely with the governor and the general assembly to get a more accurate count at the outset around kind of utilization of BPI you'll see kind of those adjustments because I think
everybody agreed you we don't want to see 30 or $40 million go back to general funds when we go to our child this became even more pronounced this year you think about the fact that we have child care subsidy program and mixed delivery weight list right it feels even you know more concerning to imagine D
was doing waiting for a child in front of you thousands of kids on on weight list and still we what we're still seeing is we're still we're still struggling to kind of get it right in terms of what school divisions are asking for and that the kind of to what extent that predicts what they're going
to use but the good news is that we do now have a mechanism if we are off as we were slightly this year that we now have a means to use those dollars so this took quite a bit of of work to get into place but um and again as you see in the beginning we tried to at the outset
right when the budget initially sets forth we offer those slots so it's the kind of the rule of first refusal goes to the school divisions and the league agencies and ultimately give every opportunity from you know July until the end of December to serve kids but in the
case where there might be fewer kids serve and their slots available then here's what we now have done to address Next slide please so we had uh uh just about um agency that just over $8
million that um in state funds that were initially allocated for BPI that we realized that there was unmet demand significant unmet demand if you think back about those weight list for childcare subsidy that we could go ahead
and serve so we ran two rounds uh this is not an option if you look at that budget language it charges the department basically following fall enrollment to make sure that the dollars you follow family preference we looked at where there was the greatest weight
list or weight was over birth five weight list and birth five witness per capita and that was in the childcare subsidy program so immediately following fall enrollment we consulted with the governor's office the department of planning and budget and the office of the attorney general to make sure that we understood the law as written and
then worked really closely with our colleagues at the department of social services to figure out in mid year how would we reallocate a set of slots um that was based on the fall enrollment we then also realized we we granted school divisions the ability to enroll kids as
permissible under law until December 31st and then as soon as we realized where we might not use all the slots there we did get a second round um for um additional slots so what we did is really to move kids off the weight list
in both January and February using those uh BPI dollars next slide please so this gives you a sense of the methodology for a point of reference just so and we probably should have included this on the
slide we were able to create about 1300 slots we did that by uh we knew because the FY26 budget has more slots than the FY25 we were as aggressive as possible so we
basically with those dollars because they don't roll over year to year funded six months of 1300 slots rather than a full year of about half of that right so again maximizing the uh number of slots right knowing that we didn't have to sort we have to assume responsibility
for the latter half of the year and the FY26 budget that seems like a lot of slots looking here but at that time we're still talking about a weight list of you know upwards of 8,000 birth kids and another 4,000 school age kids so if you're like "Wait how come I didn't hear
about this how come my weight went in my community wasn't solved?" Right this was still roughly less than 10% of the system right and I know that's it's you know it's the proverbial drop in the bucket in terms of what we were able to do but we were able to take a new law that was passed in a bipartisan fashion
and within six months right turn that into real kids served across the state you'll see here this chart describes the two phases of this um huge thanks to the access and enrollment team right here at the Department of Ed and to uh I know
he's represented here by uh Kevin to the department of social services and their local offices for helping turn these dollars into slots almost immediately again you know and we are tracking this on a weekly basis in terms of really making sure that the dollars turned into slots right that we're not just rolling
this over into the next year you'll see it's about 826 slots in that first round that went to 24 localities across all nine ready regions we took a slightly different methodology for each round largely to make sure that we could
distribute these broadly part of the challenge as uh some of our our my partners are on the table now is that you people have been on this weight list for a while if you turn around like you got 30 slots like oh my gosh there's a lot of work right I got to process those got to get them into those slots so we tried to be very sensitive to following
the law which been very clear this is about parent preference and unmet demand but also choosing this in a way that was practically feasible for um everybody uh in state care um practically feasible for all of our our localities that
receiving slots so it's 24 localities and nine ready regions in phase one and then for phase two about just under 500 slots 16 localities and six ready regions we tried to be intentional about making sure that we had rural regions including those that one of the things
we heard about in the fall was a place that had no weight that had no sort of kids served therefore didn't get any slots in FY25 but now I have two kids on the wait list right but it's like the horse cart issue like will I ever get slats so we address very small places and then we had some of our large
communities including in Northern Virginia tide water and here in central but also we didn't solve for their weight list in entirety but did provide a substantive number of of slots you see the methodology here um any remaining dollars that we are sort of you know
we'll kind of continue to distribute but basically you what this means in a very long complicated way is that I as I met with the money committees and this governor and and others this spring we have literally made sure that every dollar dedicated to early childhood in
the FY25 budget is going to be used for early childhood and the FY25 budget i think that's probably in store first for the Commonwealth in terms of really making sure that every child every dollar uh followed kids and stayed in
the early childhood sector as you see we'll move to the next slide please Liam as you see um we consider this a huge success uh in terms of making sure that the dollars stayed in early childhood we also think that you we were able to strike this
balance between honoring where the dollars were initially allocated but then recognizing if they weren't utilized um after the kind of programs and had every opportunity to use them that we would sort of you know we could we could reallocate them to kind of get kids served this year um we were able to
kind of pull together quickly and do this as charged by the law what the reason that we wanted to bring this to this body is in the future we think it probably makes sense um to create some guidelines both to promote transparency and to kind of help ensure consistency
over time this year was a fairly easy transfer right i mean you have you know dollars unused and you have 12,000 kids on a wait list right there's really no no sort of question about where those dollars could go if it were the alternate right if we sort of had a
small weight list for DPI or delivery and we had childcare subsidy unused right it could be a little bit more complicated and so an anticipation of that we are going to kind of work with our with the administration and with the board to kind of think about some guidelines for this that would help make
sure that there's kind of transparency and consistency year over year we also obviously want to make sure we did share this with the general assembly right there's clarity like okay this is how the law passed what this means in terms of Virginia kids families and educators
uh this year but you know for you think about some of the conversations had with this body in the past I also just want to recognize what an accomplishment it is um to make sure that dollars dedicated particularly state dollars dedicated for early childhood stay in
that space um and again the sector has been remarkably nimble and making sure that money gets spent so this is the very same sector that also we made sure that every single cares kursa and arpa dollar right all of those co dollars got spent we even use some slurf dollars at
the state and local relief funds that at the last minute I think we were notified in December that would be available would go unused we took turn those into childcare vouchers this year and then turned this $8 million really 60 days into childcare vouchers and so you know
sometimes when you're in the midst of this you don't realize how far you've come but if I reflect back on where we were with budgeting some of the rigidity around budgeting in years past like this truly uh represents an important moment
for early childhood in terms of being able to say every dollar that was dedicated to early childhood will be spent on early childhood this year what's not being said is that there's still great demands out there and this is being actively negotiated in our
current state budget but we do still sit with weight lists that could number about 13,000 kids in terms birth to five and school age and uh there are proposals on the table and these will be negotiated through uh early April it's
not longer about kind of how many kids we've been served next year the good news is all the proposals reflect a higher number of kids served than this year the challenges uh you know is the is like the kind of open question is to what extent will they solve for that that weight list but um historic
investment followed by historic effort to make sure that every dollar every single dollar of that historic investment goes towards relationship um and this is this is great to be able to keep the money in the early childhood field among the programs but on the
other side of infrastructure so there's been some cases where the slots were or the availability of childare substances available but then child um are there any funds on the derence of
health communities that are childare waiting listed yeah that's a great question so that was uh you know it's faded in clay in terms of the the conversations there was part of the initial proposed budget that came
from the governor's office including some dollars existing spice uh that was not in the committee or conference bundle again the budget is still being finalized but both of the last two years that have been proposals around capital
dollar um it really would be dependent on the state there are So federal CCDF funds which fund a significant portion of the block grant fund things like BQB5 and scholarships for teachers uh those
are not cannot exist for capitals okay so GPI block that year that the public schools all the same number access the same number of
APIs for which remove that those slots or reason I ask is because we've reduced the weight list somewhat did it just go back to where it is when we start the next fiscal year or so to think about the budget generally
speaking there are two things to note in the budget so the first did the language in the budget generally calls for fresh start every year so it also the the way because if you'll remember even a few years back you know it's it's in the it's hard to remember this a few years
back you needed to have the flexibility to move dollars from one jurisdiction to another even with All right hi all it looks like we may have lost the main um thread is that what everybody's seeing
yeah hopefully they will be reconnecting in a moment not sure what happened Part: 2
so yes so the law says following fall enrollment and that is a really clear designation for VPI there's a date in which you have to as very well there's a date in which you have to have your fall
enrollment that's really as of October 1st and we kind of get that by mid November and the law allows late enrollment with the idea that some prek is better than no prek so you're also allowed to enroll kids from October 1st until December 31st um uh so the law
just says following fall enrollment it doesn't limit that Susan so as we are kind of exploring these guidelines I guess there there could be a scenario right where we realize in March that there's unused dollars on a program that has its own set of implications right like which you you probably wouldn't want to start a kid in BPI in March
right that's sort of six weeks so that's as we it's one line in the law right and so we're sort of thinking through okay we probably should flesh this out um uh to kind of think through different ways in which this might work but right now the kind of the the the area where we've
had historically slight underutilization and there's kind of the most clear timeline is VPI the two things to note going into this year is that um and I should note while the budget is not final the kind of the other answer to how many slots are in VPI is the final
budget line item right so it's always a little bit tricky because there's the number generated by the formula but what really dictates the number of slots that the department can distribute is whatever that bottom line number is most versions of the budget that are being negotiated right now have roughly the
same amount of money as we had last year so uh you were looking at uh basically what that means going into this year is that there'll be some possibility for growth in BPI if there's not that you would have you know maybe $8 million left over again my guess is based on
historical growth that you would not have that much left over that if there's any left over uh that it'll be much much less than that um and so I think that's the other important point is this is a good way to make sure that dollars don't
go unused you ultimately still want to try to get the dollars right at the beginning of the year right because you know the weight list you create a lot of friction you've got kids that are not getting served from July 1st to December 31st or even you know January 30th 31st
so you know again the goal will be to get it right right based on your best estimates of unmet demand at the beginning of the year and then really use this as a an adjustment right uh rather than like you know moving thousands and thousands and thousands of
slots mid year yeah what is it can you read it out loud to me how will federal funding impact start programs could this impact your school division's DPI number that's a great question Gina so you know
a lot of um uncertainty right now around federal funding what our governor has understood in conversations with um Health and Human Services and again an important note although we sit within the Virginia Department of Education the vast majority of funding that supports
or federal funding that supports early childhood is actually through the US Department of Health and Human Services which is under the leadership of um uh Secretary uh Kennedy um we have we understand that uh continuing to provide
core services directly to kids and families is you know expected to be continued we've had this assurance around head start and early head start and have heard as much around child care uh the child care um and development block grant or fund so that's CCDF so
that is what we know right now i would say you know nearly all except about two staff of the 155 staff on the early childhood team here at the Department of Education are federally funded so we we are very reliant on these federal funds
um and we you know remain optimistic um that they will continue to support the important work here in Virginia there are very few if any I don't think any uh Superintendent Walford federal funds supporting VPI it is entirely a state
and local funded program um uh so we do not sort of expect much of a direct impact i think the real open question is sort of what is the result of all of these changes on the Virginia state budget and how that might impact these
programs because with this historic investment what it means is we went from a program that so for example with childcare subsidy that was 100% federally funded to now one that is only onethird fally funded right it's now twothirds state funded BPI is 100% state
funded and so um if there were a significant change in the state budgets that would create um risk for uh for VPI and even now for childcare subsidy i think um the reason I was cons well I you know we uh do the coordinated
enrollment of course our head starts get our kids first if if if that's if there that's the placement and we can get all that to happen like we supposed to and want it to and if they are impacted by not being able to serve kids I guess was my question would that impact me being able to take more kids and right now
both of my classrooms because I'm very small division but my um my VPI you know my classrooms are are full right now anybody that wanted to come so I'd have to find space within my building plus teachers and if that should be an impact
I guess was what I was more concerned about if you brought more kids to me because they didn't have the federal funding for the Head Start but I think you answered my question that hopefully that's not going to impact Head Start like we had maybe anticipated or thought
i mean I think another way to reflect on this superintendent is you The good news is that we are maximizing every dollar the challenge the practical challenge on the ground here in Virginia is that in maximizing every dollar means there's
very there's very little margin of error right and so like to you know I mean this question has come up even and we're we'll be communicating soon with school divisions but you know you we don't expect there's not funding able to support significant growth in VPI that's a bit of a shift from years past where
we've been able to say grow as much as you can um and that you know generally speaking there's been sufficient funding to support that if there were a significant drop in Head Start sort of funding or slots it would be really difficult for VPI and or childcare
subsidy to make up the difference right there's just no little to no margin of error right now um that's good and that we can turn around and say to our elected officials every dollar we're turning into slot that's challenging in terms of those weight lists and what it does mean if any quite frankly guys if any funding
source local state or federal were to go away um it would have a sign probably have a significant impact across the system because of how tight the budgeting is and the interdependencies across across the system thank you thank you next delivery
100% state right now yep yes Darl um I guess the other question I have is you know have there been discussions about I'm thinking about my early my early childhood special education students especially when we you know think about you know how much federal funding you
know funds them so you know has there been discussion with the department you know let's hope that you know we don't see any changes to the money but if we do federalally you know will the state be able to you know make up you know that that shortfall you know if we miss those federal dollars
yeah that's a great question Dale I think that's another example where it would be very challenging i mean so for example in recent years we've done a lot of work you know with our coordinator Don Hendris around looking at places where we could support inclusionary classrooms you know which means more BPI
slots being used right and then wrapping around those IDA dollars so that you know that that meant we needed more VPI slots and so historically if school divisions have asked for more slots of VPI than they had served the prior year and they would often let us know these are entire these are basically to take
what were previously ly self-contained classrooms and make them you know more broadly inclusive we can do a little bit of that this year um you know and with that kind of money potentially but much less than we you know have been able to offer in years past and I don't know
that we would be able if all the you know part B went away that I just I don't think there's enough state to make up the difference and so it really you know it creates you know a greater sense of stakes because IDA part B CCDBG PDG and then the state dollars you know we
have just we have really tried to kind of look across every possible resource right in partnership with this body and the commission and so there's really no from my perspective there's no rock unturned um and then we have also not sat on it right like if we've got it
we're spending it um and that um you know that just it does make everything tighter and very and more codependent than it was potentially in in the past any other questions these are great questions any other questions in the chat sierra
not a question Jenna but I think a statement um to I don't know who was speaking on the Zoom um but I think what's important too is not only coordinating the enrollment but coordinating the waiting list um to make sure that um those families that are on the waiting list know that there are
other options like Head Start or Yep or or mix delivery or private child care slots that are available um because what we'll see in Head Start and what we have been seeing over the last year or so is that Office of Head Start isn't cutting the funding but programs are reducing enrollment therefore reducing the
funding um because they're not able to fill those slots but there's kids on the waiting list um you know on the waiting list that could be served if the waiting list was coordinated um or can be coordinated more a little bit more effectively so I think that's something
important to pay attention to as well absolutely no I think that's a really really really important point one other piece and we'll we'll segue to our next update here is um as we think about this maximization
of resources we can move to the next section yeah um it also really as Shiki noted you want to make sure that you are being thoughtful about weight list right that as slots become available and we're working in partnership with Department of Social Services and our 120 local
offices across the state right get kids into slots right as soon as you possibly can if there are resources available you know the commission also raised the importance of supporting kids and families to attend as much as is possible right and again you we always
want to support attendance for for kids benefit um it becomes even more poignant quite honestly when we've got 12,000 kids sitting on a wait list right and so really making sure that we are reducing barriers and ensuring that kids can
attend the next next update because that was was such a hot topic um you know in the uh in the fall i wanted to ask Becca to uh in a in a moment take us through um kind of some effort we are to
implementing modern technology i know everybody loves the swipe card system it's a huge I just Jennifer and Clark are like and Sher like it's so good why let it go um but modernize um that system um is just really
important and there's really I think two beyond having challenges with that system there's two major things driving this um I think the first is you know as I said before like we just we have thousands and thousands of kids on these weight lists and we have to make sure
that we're fully maximizing every resource We also know from data and we've shared some of this with the commission that we have just as a society slipped in terms of attendance and if we look at K12 if we look at BPI
if we look at child care attendance you know we are seeing we don't have a pre- pandemic mixed delivery comparable but across these programs we just see less consistent attendance than we saw pre- pandemic as Becca and Aaron and others
can attest little ones get more sick than older ones do like that is part of the thing but there's nothing right now in the air or in society that would mean that they would be sort of missing more now than they were say kind of pre-
pandemic um or at least we could debate that but that's probably for another another meeting but I think what we're trying to do is work in a bipartisan way with this governor and with this general assembly and with the commission to think through how do we kind of shift that curve there's been a lot of work
for you know our K12 colleagues there's been a lot more kids are just missing school all over the place right and you know and some there's been kind of you know debate and conversation about you know why is that what has shifted since the pandemic but we feel a greater sense of urgency as we come out of this
pandemic across all of our publicly funded programs particularly with the weight list that we're that we're experiencing to figure out how do we better support kids and families to come more regularly how do we show that it really truly is beneficial right for your kids to to be present obviously
when you're sick you're sick um but if on when you're not sick how do we make sure that kids are coming and reducing those barriers and I think using data is a really big part of that and our data right now subsidy is is is far far from ideal so with that I'm going to ask
Becca to take us through these next couple slides on uh moving to the attendance tracking system i was gonna suggest that yes uh Chelsea if you can hear me give me a a thumbs up all right i'm a loud talker so um All
right um well so as as Jenna said you know we're really excited to be uh kicking off this work i make the very bad joke that this is my my third baby um I we have been trying to procure this attendance tracking system um literally
since I was pregnant with my now almost three-year-old um I have an almost one-year-old and this will be my my third and final uh final baby um so um we are are working with um an IT vendor uh Kinder Systems who is uh
kind of one of the the leading um technology vendors in uh uh subsidy management and um attendance attendance uh tracking uh systems um through a competitive procurement process um uh to
implement a system that really works better for providers and for families and and some of the real you know big goals that we had um when we were thinking about uh the procurement for this system is you know one we wanted it to be easy for everyone want to be easy
for parents um easy for providers um and uh as a parent you know now with two kids in child care who is not always the best at at recording attendance um I I have a new insight right into what it means for this to be easy and straightforward um and holding one child
and dealing with the other and trying to buzz the thing and somebody's crying and somebody just spilled their you know their milk yes yes and uh and I you know we actually have several parents of very small children that are on this project and I I think that brings a a good lens
uh into um the the design uh aspects of this work um one of the other kind of real big priorities for us was that you know we know that that many providers are already using systems that they like and that work for them um and we don't want to make you have to record attendance in multiple places if we
don't have to and so um the the system will be designed so it can interface with all of the kind of I won't say all many of the existing uh kind of bigger center management systems like um like Proare like Brightwheel um Wonders School there's a whole list and I I'm
happy to provide that um and the vendor is also open to exploring other uh what's called API um uh pathways but they have a a set of vendors that they're already kind of have that API that that communication uh possibility established with so that was a big
priority for us when we were looking at at options here and then finally as as Jenna was indicating you know um attendance matters for a lot of different reasons uh we want to know uh how kids are showing up to school because that makes a big difference and helps us understand you know their
outcomes over the long term i think we all operate under the general assumption that the more kids are uh in in care the better off their outcomes are going to be but being able to really quantify that would be incredibly meaningful and our data is just not that precise right now um but also importantly we want to
have very clear actionable data so that we can understand when kids are consistently missing care um so that we can both you know offer services right try to see if we can help them address any barriers that are uh making it difficult for them to attend on a
regular basis but also so that we can you know make decisions about when it's time for a slot to be uh moved on to the next family who really needs it um so those were our really big priorities and and again we're really excited to be working with this vendor who was able to deliver across the board um so uh you
know as as as Jenna was alluding to with her her you know comedic uh uh routine here um this is not the the fact that the swipe guard system has been a painoint it's not new information you know I I am coming up on my fifth year
here um in the department um and had the you know pleasure of being able to speak with with many of the folks in this room from the very beginning uh we were really focused on conversations about the transition what did folks want to see as we were thinking about moving aspects of the system um over to DOE and
really unifying under one roof and the swipe card system came up i mean from the very beginning right the pain points associated with that being the the mechanism for recording attendance and ultimately receiving pain point was a has been a challenge for providers for many years um we have survey data from
our research partners at UVA that um looked uh you know worked with subsidy vendors or um reported uh uh feedback from subsidy vendors about administrative burdens of participating in the system and the top two things that folks identified as being most
burdensome were resolving issues associated with technology for recording attendance and just the routine process of having to record and monitor attendance and given the way the system works it's it's largely about just making sure it's actually recorded right
i mean the providers have very little ability to um uh handle or correct for missed attendance on the back end given the way our swipe card system works and so um the feedback that we you know received in uh you know both formal and
informal uh over the course of the last five years really drove the requirements that we were putting into place when we were thinking about the the request for proposals here and ultimately reflect the the scope of work for this current project there are lots of things that we would love for this system to do and
we've got you know a not short parking lot of items that um we would considered you know thinking about in the longer term but in the immediate sort of um uh design phase we're really focused on getting a fully operational you know easy to use um and actionable system in
place so that uh again it is an easier process for you all it's an easier process for families um and and DOE has the data that we need to be able to you know uh make informed decisions uh going forward so we are currently in the early phases of design work um and what we
wanted to do today is just to click through a few um screen grabs um of what the parent interface looks like um in the the Kinder Systems platform um I want to note that this is the unconfigured system so that means that
it has not yet been uh customized for the like look and feel of the VDOE um it also doesn't include any of the things that we're kind of asking to be uh made specific for our needs and purposes so this is like if you just got the kind of
fully offtheshelf out of the box system this is what it would look like um but I think that this gives you all a good insight into the ease with which the system functions um again that kind of user experience of of logging attendance again from a parent perspective though
this would also be how a provider would log attendance if you were logging on behalf of the parent which is something you would be able to do and we'll we'll talk about that here momentarily um and we'll also speak uh a bit later about um our plans for stakeholder engagement
where we will also be able to share with our our various provider partners um some sort of live demos of what the interfaces would look like both for a parent as well as for a provider where you're getting kind of more of that uh bigger picture look at um at attendance
um on the back end of of your systems so um looking at this screen here uh this is basically if if a parent were to log into their account um in the system known as Kinder Smart so there are kind of different uh platforms based on the
function that is is being performed but Kinder Smart is is um uh the parent interface um that is accessible from any smartphone so um parents can download the app on their iPhone or on their Android device um and they can log
attendance right from their phone um they can see notifications providers can send parents messages through a portal um parents can look at attendance history so they can see the um uh the number of absences that they've accured
over time they can see you know uh their uh previous attendance records um and they can look at case information which basically means you know if there are children all of the children that are kind of in their uh under their their um their all of their children enrolled in
the birth yes household thank you um that are enrolled in your program um and that they have the ability to log attendance for um uh also importantly parents can authorize other uh adults so there's a a a a limit on the number of
what they refer to as sponsors but say you have a grandma or you have a neighbor that drops your child off you know once or twice a week you can assign them or authorize them as a user and they can still log attendance for that child so there's no handing off of cards
there's no having to call from anywhere right um the those approved adults just log in using a different um a different kind of key and they can uh log attendance on the behalf um of that parent
um so when a parent goes to log attendance it's it's pretty straightforward um you they would see all of the children in their household that are enrolled at that particular site they either check in they check out or they indicate that the child is absent and then they you know sign a
digital signature to uh to log that attendance um the sort of general requirement is that the um uh you have to be within a certain number of feet of the site in order to be able to log attendance um and um but if you're
indicating an absence it can be from a from a distance um we have some discretion in like how far away you can be and as a person that usually gets to my car and is like I forgot to scan the QR code um you know we can kind of think about what a reasonable distance would
be as we're uh we're you know firming up those those requirements um and uh there's also the ability to add notes so again you know if you're coming in late or if you want to indicate a reason for absence those are things that can just be added um in
that interface and then um again uh as I mentioned before I know that a a big pain point is when you know a parent uh forgets their card or forgets to swipe um that it is it is challenging uh for providers to be
able to um address that on the back end without action by the parent and so one of the things that we really wanted to make sure that we were able to do in this new system is have a a mechanism for providers to be able to be the recorders of the attendance and for there to be effectively like a passive
approval process on the parents end so in other words the way that it'll work is um uh if if I'm a parent you know I I forget to log my children's attendance it'll show up for me in that like missed tab so it'll show up with like a little red alert button so either I can go in
and log it after the fact and it can be backdated or providers can go in and log the attendance so if I you know say goodbye to to my child's teacher I walk out the door and they realize oh you forgot to log your your child in they can log it and then if I don't approve
it within a certain number of days and we're kind of thinking about a week um it's just considered recorded um so parents have a window of time to dispute it right if if if I want to say "Oh no i actually I didn't bring her in," or "I only dropped one of my kids off that day
right not not both of them." The parent can dispute that record but they have a window of time to do so before it's considered approved and that way you also don't have you know uh that that kind of active approval holding up the process for providers to receive
payment um so again this is just a really kind of quick snapshot into the interface um and again you know I I hope that um this kind of helps to demonstrate you know some of the strategies and the considerations that we've been taking into account to really
try to eliminate some of the big pain points that exist in the current system um a couple of other features just for for your awareness that uh there wasn't an easy screen grab to uh to be able to you know paste into a slide and show you but that we will have those kind of
video demos to walk you through when we move into the the stakeholder engagement process um is uh one of the other kind of big priorities in addition for those of you that have a a management system that you like and you want to continue to use you know doing our best to make
sure that it can it can speak with our system we also want to allow providers to use this as their record of attendance if they don't have a system that they like and so um uh it is possible for providers to um allow private pay families to use this system
as well so they would go through the exact same process um they would log in through the app you know the difference is just that um for subsidized children or children that are participating um in this childcare subsidy program those kids would be effectively state added to the provers's record and we would
receive information for those kids only but if you're a pro if you're adding children that are private pay or that are funded through some other source that you know is not transmitting data to the state um we just would never receive those records it would be kind of entirely living within your program's
uh instance of of the system so again we hope that that really helps to alleviate you know some of the challenges of having attendance in multiple places either because you're able to continue to use that system that you like or because you can use this as a system of record for all of the kids in your site
um importantly you know there are also going to be the ability for um you all as well as parents to to receive notifications like hey this child hasn't been here for a certain number of days or um hasn't recorded attendance for a certain number of days you know and all
of that will be kind of birectional you know you'll receive a notice the parent will receive a notice um and there's the ability to exchange those messages in the system as well um uh so that you know things can be resolved um uh ideally kind of in in the portal
um so I'll pause there just to see if anyone has any questions from like a system standpoint before we talk a little bit about timeline um and then uh stakeholder engagement opportunities sure delivery is going to talk to delivery portal into
not immediately so uh in the initial kind of phase of of uh implementation this is just for the child care subsidy program um and uh and and will not kind of communicate with any of our other uh
systems like right off the bat we are planning to have it interface with link v5 with VA connects um in a future you know uh phase of development and I think the the a wonderful thing about this system um that we can consider kind of
in the future too is that we can actually um assign children uh through different funding streams so in the future if we wanted to be able to use it for mixed delivery or for any other program you know we would be able to kind of distinguish which kids are
enrolled under which funding stream and attendance can be logged and kind of like captured in that way um that is unique to those programs so it has that functionality already built in we just won't use it right off the bat but they could add them as private pay
absolutely y is it do you know the interplay not off the top of my head but I'll look okay I'll hear any questions in the chat question sorry will this eventually eliminate us having to keep attendance or licensing inspectors when they come
in so Jeff I believe that the new regulations allow for the electronic so this could be your electronic system of record yeah yeah so yes
all right so um again as I kind of said at the the the top of of this section um we are are just getting underway with design work um and we are working on an extremely aggressive timeline uh because
we uh want to get this up and running uh for the sake of everyone uh and because uh we want to be able to get access to this data and ultimately our our contract with the the swipe card uh vendor is ending and so we have a a true uh a true hard stop the truth comes
after and so um there will be you know tons of communication coming out over the course of the next um uh the remainder of this calendar year with very concrete next steps and expectations about you know when folks need to begin uh getting account set up
when to expect hardware that's something else I I didn't mention is that um if you already have tablets um then you you can let us know that and we will not send them to you but any sites that need tablets they will be provided to you so it'll all be done you know on smart
devices um and uh and there are very short turnaround times included in our contract for replacing uh broken equipment um and there are also kind of because there are multiple means of recording the attendance um we're
hopeful that if there is ever you know a a downtime with your tablet on your site the ability to record on smartphones the ability to record that they do have a phone system you know kind of as a last resort um and there's also the ability I should have mentioned this earlier too
um for attendance to be logged offline and then synced later so if your internet goes down or if I know some of our YMCA's um are uh operating at school sites where they can't necessarily easily access the Wi-Fi or you know there are kind of issues along those
lines attendance can still be logged and it's stored and then once you're connected to the internet it'll sync um so there's a lot of that kind of functionality again to really try to eliminate some of those uh glitchy things that are just big challenges right now
um so we'll have lots of of information you know forthcoming about actions that programs need to take actions that families need to take we will have to go you know figure out a mechanism to collect all of the POSOS devices uh and make sure that those are returned to the vendor um so all of those communications
are forthcoming um so you know we'll really be in in kind of largely design phases over the course uh of this spring um we'll be working on training materials and testing in the summer um and into the
early fall um and uh we'll begin distributing the hardware the tablets to providers um in October November with a a go live date um of December uh end of December um y don't stop asking questions on that
is there any kind of provision for providers that are so rural that they have absolutely no access is there any kind of way to I know you said they can do the attendance online and then later sync it but how long can it hold it yeah that's a really good question Susan and
I know that that is accounted for somewhere in our requirements i will double check on that um one of the things that we will show folks um when we do these video demos too is that there is there is an actual like internet platform too right there's a
web uh version of the application um that uh that that providers can use to log attendance right so if there was um uh the you know inability to uh connect a tablet I think like worst case
scenario it's something that could be logged on the website but let me double check on that and just I'm thinking they have absolutely no access i mean we still have parts of our region that just don't have don't have internet whatsoever whatsoever got it yeah let me uh let me double check and see exactly
what the uh that kind of duration is again I know that this is something that was um included in our requirements recognizing that connectivity you know can't be like the barrier to be able to log attendance um and I will circle back you know seven days or 30 days or
whatever and then they can go to their local library upload it or whatever i'm thinking about family sure it is not short it's not like a 24-hour window it is longer than that but I don't have the answer off the top of my head make sure
yes yes um so um most immediately uh we are um uh planning some uh stakeholder engagement sessions so we will be reaching out to uh to Clark to Cheryl uh
to uh to Tandua for our Head Start directors um uh Holly I think we'll get in touch with you uh for our before and after school providers um to uh and as well as you know other other outlets that we have to try to um share again
some uh video sort of demos of the system again unconfigured you know not yet customized for VDOE but just to give you a sense of the look and feel of the system to give you a sense of the functionality to surface questions like the one that Susan just did and just
make sure that we have all of these things fully accounted for again we have um you know our our um uh our contract kind of stipulates the the specific requirements that need to be met but there are still decision points right as we go through the design process and
opportunities for us to make kind of minor adjustments within the the framework that we've developed and then if we're also thinking kind of big picture down the line as I indicated we've got a parking lot already of things that we're really interested in in exploring and so are looking both for
reactions to the again the look and feel the sort of user experience questions to make sure that we can get all of that you know uh reflected in our plan of implementation as well as so we can think a bit about the kinds of resources and tools that our partners are going to need whether we're thinking about
families or providers um uh in order to ensure that this is a successful roll out um and so um we will be in touch um uh very very soon um and if you're interested in learning more or you want to make sure if you have a group that
might not be um one that we have engaged with directly um that you want to ensure you know has an opportunity to see the the um the system please contact Clipton his information is on the slide here and and in your um in your packets um or
feel free to reach out to me um and we will also do some open sessions so we'll have some that are just you know you can register anyone can attend um a little bit more of like a webinar style um but we want to try to get to as many you know groups of folks as we can to have those more um informal right uh kinds of
conversations uh so that we can get get that feedback great i'm sorry yeah go will there be an expense to the provider at some point no and I think it's helpful Cheryl Susan
Clark and others really thinking about like you know who are the hardest to serve right i mean I think in general through a competitive process we landed on a product that this is not new right this is established in other states so I think we have a great deal of confidence
on the like the core product i think what is so important in the Virginia design and in the work happening right now is thinking the same way that you both are and like who who who are the folks that are part of your groups or association or your constituents who struggle most right even if even if
conduit worked well right just because of of of where they're located the technology challenges they might face I mean I imagine you know the um you know some family childcare folks might not even use smartphones right speaking of dial phones um and so thinking through
like again as we as we sort of develop the tool itself and the resources um you know who you know what what do we need to be thinking because you all are closer to some of your colleagues and partners in that way is kind like a program here at bright beginnings does
it author a lot of other kinder systems yeah um yes yes it has u broader functionality like the um kinder it's like kinder smart kinder track and kinder connect are the three the three uh attendance tracking um interfaces but
they have many other uh interfaces uh for other purposes in the sort of like childare management subsidy program management as well the reason I asked that probably the answer is no is if you've got um providers who don't have any kind of electronic system like that
because they have a big state contract would they offer them at a lower cost if it's the first time a provider maybe ventures into the system because they've got a big state contract yeah that's a good question i I genuinely don't know the answer to it and I think we can can
certainly explore it might be that so this might be the person's first foray into into the space yeah then they might be like "Wow I can really use this other function." I will say it does make life easier to have a Sure yeah yeah that was my question that's great yeah
yeah i mean I think across the board supporting everybody to have more accurate data on usage i just is it goes a long way in this broader effort to kind of understand the impact that these experiences are having on kids and so if
if this becomes a lever to help people do that I think you we obviously want to be very careful about the privacy of kids data to if they're not publicly funded um but yes exploring options like that is made possible by better technology this will still be very well
received that's great awesome all right we are going to wrap up here um you've got Becca's information and Clifton's for followup i um with our health and safety updates so
we're not going to do uh an item that requires endorsement we will hold that for our subsequent meeting but uh Jeff and I and the Office of Childare um health and safety wanted to just sort of do a quick touch base basically Jeff and
I sat down like what questions is Clark going to have for us and how might we ahead of this answer all of them uh so that we're all on the same page uh on standards fasttrack uh water le waterled testing
again uh these are things you know for example these latter two that are are are law that we have to implement but so it's not the jurisdiction of this body to weigh in on them but we think it's helpful because it affects your your constituences and then constituencies rather and then a quick update on
pre-ervice so I'll turn over to Jeff to do the other regs update um you're talking loud loud loud loud loud loud standards for child day i'm not sure anybody has ever told me to be louder
but fair enough um standards for child day centers the proposed standards are currently under review by the Office of Attorney General um after that it will go for executive review uh with the governor's office secretary of education at that point if they like what they see
it will go out for public comment uh that'll be a 60-day public comment we'll do our usual we'll put out readiness connections um most likely do a memo to licensed child day centers saying it's out there giving folks the opportunity to give feedback also in order to give
them directions of where to go to give that feedback i.e town hall um just a reminder the way we did the Nora this past back in 2023 this will be a second attempt to
get feedback um even though the NORA process the feedback is limited to legally opening up the regulations we did get a lot of feedback uh and it was worth looking at so we've kind of tweaked things um based on that so when
it does go out we will hope that there is less feedback because we've done a good job of getting the feedback prior to that and because the team this team has worked so hard we feel like we've heard a lot of good things and we've modified it to that the $10 million
question is when Jeff and that's just that is just anybody's guess um in terms of when does it come out of the attorney general's office when does it go to the governor's office is anybody's guess so just from the history going back to general procedures that was with the
attorney general's office for about 200 days um so it's really kind of undetermined when that would come back before I jump to uh the fasttrack for the epinephrine any questions about the CDC standards the um out of school time folks uh have
put forward some flavors and they seem to be on a different track um yeah so probably the best way to answer that is we need to wait a little bit to see if what the governor does regarding signing of the
Senate bill uh because that will then determine how we move forward um definitely a good question in terms of what does that mean for the governor's office and the CDC standards you know so there's a lot of ambiguity hopefully here in the next couple weeks we'll have a better answer to that by by the next
meeting hopefully we can kind of talk a little bit more about that i think Jenna anything else on that um yeah so sorry to say sorry right y later this spring we'll better since we'll do what typically we do at this body an implementation update
budget and laws passed holly great so the fast track regarding epinephrine uh we basically have submitted it to attorney general's office we've gotten some executive review back we're in the process of analyzing that as it applies
um to chapter 790 so basically we're having to change several different regulations family day home CDC um and so we've got some feedback we're analyzing that we hope to have that back to uh department of planning and
budgeting and attorney and the office of the governor and that that point we'll kind of work forward in the meantime we're still working with the department of health because we can do everything right from a regulation standpoint the Department of Health has to be
comfortable with what we put in writing in order for them to give us the script so that childcare providers can get the undesated epinephrine um so it's kind of a tag team effort to go through there we are still many months out from that um
but things are going well uh and we do think we'll be able to kind of continue forward um hopefully by the summer we'll have some really good ideas about when we think this might actually go into effect but it is also something that we or the board has control over as well as
the governor's office so uh you know it will always be our push to say hey once we make this effective let's give a good amount of time before we implement this because there is going to be a cost to go get this stock epinephrine for licensed child day centers questions
about that i know we've heard a lot about it but it's it's not quite as easy a lift because it involves so many different pieces of government another department um and whenever it comes to medication there's always uh some complexity we have to navigate great so the last one
in terms of regul regulations is portable water the testing requirements uh as of January 1st we've started verifying compliance and are working with child care providers to make sure that they're in compliance um we're noticing some providers who are in
schools and so we're working with schools to help make sure that they're providing the information to the child care programs that are in their schools so we think it's going really really well um hopefully there isn't a child care provider out there who hasn't heard something about this so there are no
surprises with like three webinars and memos and 17 different um pushes in readiness connection um we are confident that we did our best but understand that some people maybe it's a new director at a child care center or something so just
to let you know you know we are citing violations but working with providers to move forward uh again it's like "Hey yeah you didn't pass this one pop quiz on this but we're not going to fail you but we need to talk about how to move forward." Um as most folks know lead is
is is really dangerous for young children so we we want to kind of stick keep the pressure down to move forward with that questions about portable water and lead testing question um do we have data
on how many programs have already obtained their their testing um we could probably get that information we definitely don't have it on you know tally tallied up in terms of giving you
that um we can see there's a a need that we can try and um offer some type of assistance yes yeah so I I would say that if we're looking at it we're giving them assistance right then and there so um
even though we don't have the numbers I'm confident that when we do go in we will help them walk forward to compliance if they're not i'm very confident of that just from the conversations that I've seen and heard from the inspectors as well as uh the consultant that we have doing that i'm
really pleased with how proactive the team has been for that region wasn't in compliance get to know how quickly that's so that's something we can get information or whatever right providers that you need us to help you
nudge okay um my team uh I know there's some some of my team listening in please put a note about followup on that great next please uh the next is about pre-ervice training so um do be sure
let's if we will focus on the screen because uh there's some important information there I want to kind of make sure we highlight um so pre-ervice training we're actually moving forward really really well to and and doing some exciting things i'm really excited about
the work that we're doing um so just a little bit of history uh this has been on our radar DOE's radar for a couple of years now about how we wanted to update this we had actually done some work um some lower level lifting some lowhanging
fruit regarding the annual update to the pre-ervice training uh and then we were looking forward to kind of moving forward so pursuant to House Bill 1024 there and based on a JLock review some provider surveys we've done some
listening sessions there's federal requirements we've done some staff analysis but but long story short we've got a lot of great feedback of how to improve the 10our what we call the 10-hour pre-ervice training for staff
um the training is what we're looking to do really kind of two things came out of that one making it more age appropriate and the best example is that a school age staff person isn't learning about diapering however they might need to if
they're you someone a child with special needs so there's some nuances there um but also tailoring to the type of care um so I'm going to talk about the proposed structure up on the screen because we really I think came up with a
creative way to do both and so all staff who have not currently gone through this pre-ervice training meaning we're not making anybody re redo it but if you've not taken it you're going to have a core competency and this is what the feds require in order for us to get child
care money that all staff working in child care take so we have a core competency then a child care provider the people who are actually working with the children can go one of two ways they say I am working well actually three ways i'm working just with school age
children then they can take a component that's just school age they get a certificate i got pre-ervice training that's just for school age and there are others that say "Okay I work with birth to five in a family day home setting versus I work from birth to five in a
center setting." Because there's some very important nuances in in those two situations in terms of family day home versus child versus um a CDC or licensed or unlicensed um child day center so then they could take that now there's
some staff it's like "Oh I'm a family day home provider and I want all ages." Okay then you're going to take the core competency you're going to take the birth to five for family day home and you're going to take the school age program or I'm a director of a child care center i'm going to take the core
competency i'm going to take birth to five for CDC and I'm going to take the school aers and so you have down the road a provider is like I was a family day home provider i took everything but now I want to be the director of a center okay well we just need you to add
on this birth to five for center because there's some nuances there so the way this is looking to be designed is that if you were to take everything core birth to five center birth to five family day home and the school aer that
might add up to 10 hours but we're still trying to figure that out so it's like what content do we need to cover let's do that but if you took everything then it might add up to 10 hours but those other pieces are going to we foresee them being probably maybe if you take
two that might be a six-hour training don't want to nail it down we're still really early in this process and we also want the content to dictate the time not vice versa we are still going to talk about things like subsidy we're still going to talk about quality things that
we think it's important for childcare providers in Virginia to at least be aware of and familiar with but it will not go into indepth training that the previous one did partly because this training is now much broader than it was first originally designed just for
subsidy providers so I'm going stop there for questions there any comments great awesome that's it for me wonderful thank you guys so this is exciting and again um updates we are
sharing with you all in process one to keep you up to speed with where you are but two if there are uh there are you or constituents that you represent who want to kind of go a little deeper obviously
this work is underway and both Jeff and Becca and their respective teams are very open to feedback um and so we just we really we think that kind of hearing the insights from you help make the work better it is 3 o'clock we are going to
uh try to end on time two incredibly important announcements before we wrap the first is we now need an April meeting um so your homework today whether you're virtually or in person is that Aaliyah is going to send out or
we're going to try to capture for those who present very short order which of these three April dates would work for you april 10th April 17th or April 24th with a preference being for those earlier two so that we have enough time to turn around the content for the May
meeting the content being the VQB5 updates and where we are on the general procedures um and background check uh regulations so again April 10th April 17th and April 24th we need to uh pretty quickly pivot and get everybody back um
in person uh with quorum for those important endorsements the second I've been putting off to the very end because it makes me very sad although we're happy for her but and it may not be your last one depending on when this April meeting is we're just going to drag this out but
our uh esteemed chair has an incredible professional opportunity within her own community and she is stepping out uh of the of the early childhood sector in Hampton Roads um but our chair Franklin
is going to be leaving the early childhood advisory committee um to take a new professional opportunity and on behalf of the committee and the department of education we first wanted to say thank you um it is a lot to sit up here in front and keep us moving you
remember the very long meetings on licensing the contentious votes on what was the vote on i can't remember what the vote was on what was the vote on square footage square footage but in all seriousness having somebody up here who is um able to chart those waters
particularly considering this was our inaugural early child advisory committee the first of its kind here in the Commonwealth Sha has done an extraordinary job and we are very very grateful for her and for her service and we will miss her miss her dearly she
also has aly represented Head Start through some really challenging times for Head Start um through the pandemic through challenges around enrollment challenges around funding and we just appreciate her wearing both hats in terms of her representation of Head Start and um her uh serving as a leader
on this body we have flowers and a card for horse but please also come and join um in the interim we are not going to have a vote on chair at this moment because we're about to have a lot of turnover with our phase in here what we
recommend we can't have a vote on this but what we highly recommend is that we wait until we have our full full uh committee as of July after our July meeting to um to designate a chair if Schiki is not able to be here in in April and for our May meeting we will
have our vice chair Clark Anders who will serve as acting chair in her absence um uh just to get us through to when we have voted on a new chair so please join me um in thanking Shy we're going to do a little round of applause
those on the phone you can clap too all right with that Chair Franklin can you do you know maybe either your final or your second to final uh my final or my Let me actually Let me do this let me pause if there's anybody else i know she
doesn't she's going to be so sad but if there's anybody else who wants to say anything let me pause that before I allow her to adjourn i just want to thank you because you but you're the inaugural chair for a brand new committee and you did a wonderful job and you definitely appreciate that
thank you definitely thank you all so much it's definitely been my pleasure it's kind of bittersweet um I've been in early childhood for way longer than I thought I would when I started u but over 20ome years and so um it's definitely
bittersweet but it has certainly been my pleasure um to serve on in this capacity in all things early childhood education whether it's Head Start DBI childcare or whatever i'll forever be an early childhood advocate um in my new role I I will be working some with our early
childhood um systems there um as I um begin to transition that's the first thing I'm like what are you doing around early childhood um and so definitely we will be doing a deep dive there to see uh and make sure that early childhood education is of high quality in that
area high quality um so with that I just thank you thank you Jenna and Jeff and and everybody for your support um as we went through these these tough meetings and and being able to hear from everybody's perspective and take those into account of how this this committee
move forward so um I I'm looking forward to continuing to see the great work um in our in our states and community around early childhood education and I'm just gone a little bit not a whole lot and who knows we'll probably can cross paths again so meetings are open to the
public there we go love it public comment there's a and then one other key uh thing before before I allow Shiki to adjourn i also should note that we do have she was not able to make it today because she is in I think believe a maternal uh health task force but our
deputy secretary Emily Gixon is now also our acting superintendent of public instruction and she wanted to join us today unfortunately I think was not uh available to do that but potentially will come uh by and say hello in April um it is our expectation that she'll rem
remain acting for the remainder of this administration she is a huge champion of early childhood uh uh and is incredibly supportive of this work so I just want we'll probably pop in uh at a subsequent meeting um but just wanted everybody know that that leadership transition has
occurred here at the department uh we feel in a good place um as we as we uh go go forward all right with that miss with that we are journ at 306 we should know that I didn't have any questions after it nailed it that's it