Item 2. What is Quality and What is Mixed Delivery?

Yes, as well as ECE administrators who hold advanced degrees, yet are not eligible for an Administrator Credential to hold a position at a district office. Those in administrative positions with power and making decisions in the TK space do not have the ECE to inform appropriate practice.

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How does the public access the discussion happening in discourse?

My district’s families are concerned about their child’s toileting needs and existing barriers to accessing early learning opportunities. Not all children with toileting support needs are children with disabilities. Excluding or failing to accommodate children who cannot complete toileting tasks or have a delay in toileting skills may constitute discrimination in violation of federal civil rights laws.

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looks like through the QR code pinned on zoom by Emily Esteban from GPG.

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I agree that is an issue. I work at a district level and feel the barriers.

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california needs to have a common definition and measurement of school readiness that are used across a mixed delivery system; locally, we use the UC Santa Barbara developed tool called Kindergarten Student Entry Profile (KSEP) which is an observation-based assessment tool;

the data presented seems to say (and i don’t mean from a causation or correlation perspective), in boiled down language, higher staff qualifications in public pre-K programs that serve predominantly white children have higher child outcomes (standardized and academic assessments) and classroom quality (CLASS) and no significant social-emotional outcome differences.

i am sure that this same data exists for california ECE programs and i would have more appreciated this same report with data specifically about our state

even so, i appreciated the report and research behind it and agree with the recommendations contained therein

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Or those of us with teaching credentials in early childhood and early childhood special education in other states that CA won’t accept. I wonder in this shortage of educators how many others may be in the same situation that we can’t tap into.

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Although, I don’t think that many districts are using the CA frameworks and foundations or DRDP as an assessment. Many TK classrooms are using the district’s rubric of standards aligned to kindergarten.

I’m one of those ECE Administrators who hold an advance degree but do not have an Administrator Credential.

When I relocated to CA from TN, I had already taken the CBEST while in college because I knew it would be needed in order to teach in CA. What I didn’t know was that I would need to take the CLAD to get a clear credential. I waited 2 years after returning to CA to take courses for a CLAD because I had just finished my doctorate degree and didn’t want to take anymore college courses. My TN Teaching and Beginner’s Administrator licenses only got me a Preliminary Multiple Subject Credential and Preliminary Administrator Credential. To get a Clear Administrator Credential I needed 2 years experience. I started working in what I thought were administrator positions in CA but only 1 position qualified and I ended up 6 mos short in the 5 years I held the Preliminary Credential. California then changed their requirements for a Clear Credential and I was going to have to enroll in a two-year program and have a mentor shadow me. I decided I wasn’t going to deal with it anymore and just stayed with a Child Development Director Permit.

I had also taken and passed the School Leaders Licensure Assessment (SLLA) but CA was no longer accepting it when I moved back in 2011.

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Just some thoughts I am pondering on:
Barriers- inequities across caregiving contexts
Coaching-individualized based on provider need. Coaching expertise match the program and educator needs
Professional Development: Additional trainings for advanced learners or moving beyond introductory type trainings.
Equitable access for all caregiving types to be allowed to compete for funding in lieu of granting funds to one agency or school district.
Creating a system to better balance out teacher qualifications. Teachers, administrators with degrees that are ECE focused should not be required to obtain credential to be considered. It is such a disrespect to the ECE field and every individual who have worked hard to earn their degree.

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And therein lies the problem. Resources are available but they choose to reinvent the wheel with what may not be developmentally appropriate.

Is the decision making flowchart available as a separate handout for reference?

I agree with the need to look at child outcomes by setting and child demographics in California. One reason we don’t have that information is that we don’t have a unique child identifier that allows us to follow children from CSPP, Head Start, or other private providers into kindergarten. A second reason is we don’t have a unified assessment system that allows us to look at children’s outcomes from one year to the next. These are things we can fix!

However I do want to lift up this study from Berkeley, WestEd, and LPI that shows children’s outcomes from fall to spring by race/ethnicity on the DRDP. It shows that as QCC tiers increased, child outcomes for multilingual learners, children with disabilities, and children from all race/ethnicities increased. Unfortunately it doesn’t include TK b/c DRDP is not required in TK settings. https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/product/california-preschool-quality-ratings-report

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With the number of teachers and administrators they will need, CTC will need to re-evaluate their pathway for out-of-state license/credential holders, although there does seem to be an easy pathway for Child Development Permit holders to obtain the new TK Credential. There hasn’t been a pathway for the Administrator Credential yet.

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A few questions:

-What outcomes are parents hoping to see as a result of their children’s pre-K experiences?

-The final presentation indicated that NY is a state where children in CBO programs didn’t have lower CLASS scores than children in LEA-based programs. Do the researchers have a sense of why this might be?

-The final presentation also noted that white students were more likely than children from communities of color to attend LEA-based programs. Is it possible that one (of multiple) reasons for this trend might have been that CBOs were able to provide the wraparound care and/or extended hours of care that Black and Brown families needed?

Several of ECEC’s New Jersey-based providers have indicated that implementation of pre-K in the state is not uniform. Some districts partner with CBOs (and are even eager to subcontract), and some do not. One provider noted that adopting the required district curriculum can be a barrier to participation and suggested that perhaps CBOs could present their own curriculum…and if it aligns with the district’s curriculum, that it could be utilized. This suggestion is also in line with the idea that a single curriculum might not meet all children’s needs or parents’ desires for their children’s ECE experiences.

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It is a striking set of data, even though this may be evident in the public view, that children in CBOs preK are not performing as well as their peers in the LEA. It also sounds like, the more consistent across the system, the more consistent the child outcome would be. Hopefully the workgroup is the opportunity to really ensure a equitable system, where all workforce in ECE are considered the same level of professionals. ECE teachers can have the same professional recognition, pay, benefit, planning time, professional development, and coaching, as the teachers in LEA. Otherwise, the moment ECE teachers receive public school teacher credentials, a lot of time they choose to move up to the public school setting. Besides the above advantages, not to mention the school vacation weeks, summer break, …ECE field may become the revolving door or spring board for public school teaching

I appreciate the thorough presentations that were shared today, with a clear definition of mixed delivery for the purpose of this workgroup and essential information regarding DEI. I am pondering how we can come together as early education advocates, across the range of types of delivery systems, to meet the range of family needs. How can we build on structures already in place, such as QCC, to continually improve and sustain high quality? How can we support school districts with the shift in focus on TK as a “junior kindergarten” to TK as a developmentally informed preschool program? How can we stabilize the ECE workforce to ensure quality and consistent staffing, a characteristic that is vital to a high quality program. Some of these questions are larger than the scope of the workgroup, but are some of the “ponderings” brought to mind. I do believe quality and ongoing PD accessible (in format, times, language, etc.) to all early childhood educators is a key element if we are to build and sustain high quality programs.