Please ask the presenter to slow down. The interpreter needs to keep up 
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Thanks for letting us know. Weāll relay the message.
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Good feedback Hanna. For now we will get some of these questions over to Catalyst for when they come back in April. We will explore getting presenters on Discourse for the next meeting.
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In terms of staff retention. It is very important that we really look at the staff to child ratio. It is crucial to have a workable ratio
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Supporting Nancyās comment on a stronger focus on students with disabilities through the equity lens.
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Quality standards need to be consistent and aligned across all UPK settings that include TK. Legislation needs to remove the definition of TK as the first year of a two-year kindergarten which no longer serves TK as the largest and only fully funded setting for UPK. We also need to look at how we approach school readiness in a way that does not feed fear and stress the teaching of rote instruction of basic skills instead of promoting integrated instruction that promotes creativity and higher-order thinking.
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I am so glad that we have people on board who are asking about our students with special needs. We keep saying ALL children but we really need to see how to make this accessible to special needs students. Thanks again
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I agree wholeheartedly. We need to ensure there is a continued focus on supporting developmentally appropriate, play-based, intentional learning activities.
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Yesā¦and we need to have a discussion on what inclusion means for different student populations. We canāt assume a āone size fits allā for students with disabilities
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i will need to step away momentarily, be back ASAP
Again, great, thorough presentation ā Slides 12-16 from Child Trends provide standards for how to ensure the recommendations that come from this workgroup address systematic racism and oppressive systems. The questions on the screen seem not in alignment with the ChildTrends points for me or are difficult to elicit feedback on this topic. I think the topic is incredibly important and we just heard important points about it. I am grateful as a workgroup member to know all this information that is using facts about what this means for children and families as we discuss recommendations that must keep an anti-racist approach top of mind.
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In education standards and teachers/program training and support to move away from deficit thinking and practices. In DEI standards call our affirming practices that authentically empower, celebrate, and promotes joy and strengths of diverse culture, language, race, and abilities
I also donāt like that TK is defined as the first year of a two-year kindergarten program. It is really another year of preschool. When it first rolled out, it was designed to catch the children that would fall through the cracks due to the kindergarten cut-off age moving up. It was also recommended that TK teachers following the column āup to 60 monthsā in the Preschool Learning Foundations. Preschool Learning Foundations are already aligned to the Kindergarten standards and Head Start Early Learning Outcomes Framework is aligned to Preschool Learning Foundations. CSPP programs are to follow the Preschool Learning Foundations. There are standards already in place, we just need to look at them and create one consistent framework; same with the mixed-delivery system following the CA Early Educator Competencies for teachers.
My question is how do we get Head Start programs in CA aligned with the mixed delivery system when it is a national federal program and not all Head Start programs across the nation would need to abide by whatās set in CA?
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My comments below reflect the perspectives of California providers with whom I communicated before this conversation:
To the question of what high-quality pre-K looks like, the impact and importance of teachers canāt be overstated! In that vein, responsive teacher-child interactions are critically important. Asking open-ended questions and being sensitive and responsive to a childās needs are ways to facilitate attentive interactions with all children. In addition, professional development for educators (pre-service and in-service) is needed. āThe more knowledge and supports that educators possess will build the quality within the learning environment. This will lead to positive outcomes for the child.ā (quote from a provider).
The learning environment in an early childhood setting is also critical. It should be developmentally appropriate, language-rich, and inclusive (e.g. embraces all children and supports home language, childrenās cultures, and different family structures). It should also be an environment in which children are kept safe and healthy. Further, in a study by Early Edge CA and Child360, Los Angeles-based providers indicated that a āloving and nurturing environment for childrenā was an important indicator of quality.
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I agree that professional development is essential for all educators, refardless of the educational setting.
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I am thinking about the alignment of expectation for children in different settings. If all our preK children in the mixed delivery sytem will be going into kindergarten, the alignment of kindergarten readiness expectation from settings to settings, or the thoughfulness of preK transition to K will be important. The successful connection and transition into kindergarten is ultimately the goal for all preK children and our goal as the UPK system. This is relevant as we think about equity.
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Great point! We canāt think about PreK without thinking about kindergarten and we canāt think about kindergarten without thinking about PreK.
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do we have any comparable studies for California?
Iām curious about a few points in the Mixed Delivery in State-Funded Prek Programs.
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That white students were more likely to attend public school programs, and black and latinx students tend to attend CBOs. I wonder if this is stemming back to the trust of the education system which has historically been an oppressive system. This raises for me the importance of building alignment in quality between TK and CBO in terms of quality.
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Iām curious if in this study were children in CBOs were in mixed-age classrooms with 3-4-year-olds or separated by grade (age) 3 and 4-year-olds. Iām curious if this had an impact on some of the student outcome data
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Intensive Supports in classrooms that serve marginalized groups worry me because what we have seen is that these intensive supports tend to be rote teaching of basic math and literacy skills instead of hands-on embedded instruction. This becomes an equity issue in that marginalized groups are denied the educational opportunities that lend to creativity and higher-order thinking and learning that leads to overall achievement
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I noticed that Michigan had a localized funding system that sub-contracted out to CBOs. I wonder if this is something we can think about for California through our LCAP system where districts can subcontract with CBOs
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I also wonder about enrollment and eligibility. In California our CSPP program provides barriers and difficulty for families to enroll and prove eligibility vs enrollment into TK which is a much easier process. I wonder if we can look at enrollment practices to streamline the mixed delivery system
Interested if the barriers to few educators of color, culturally and linguistically diverse having BAs/MAs, were included in the studies presented and how they are being addressed. A big concern is the continuation of systemic inequities among providers given the biases in higher education systems.
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