Education- House Early Childhood Subcommittee
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0:00
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Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
7:30
thank you committee for being here late in the day let's go ahead and get started first thing we need to do is consider the minutes from last meeting thank you very much second second
thank you all in favor say aye opposed nay eyes have it uh so the next thing is
secretary oliva and director abney if y'all don't mind coming to the table thank you very much We really appreciate y'all being here to clarify some of the questions that we had in the last meeting and to talk a little bit more about everything that's going on in early childhood right now. I do have a summary of survey responses that I got back from the Arkansas Early Childhood Association and Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families.
That came to me last night, so there's a copy of that for you guys here. And Ashlyn, I think you got a copy of it. Yes, ma'am. I received it this morning. I think I put it out there so everybody could take a look at it. And if there's questions, I'm sure y'all could answer them without seeing it beforehand. But you have it as well. Good deal. Okay. The purpose of this meeting, I think, is just to focus on making sure that our early childhood investments are economically sustainable,
data-driven and supportive of both mixed delivery and infant-toddler access across Arkansas. And so if you guys can just give us an update about where we are, how the funding has changed or has changed and is changing, and some of the issues that you guys are facing. I know that in some of the commission meetings, the funding perspective can be dire. And so I'd like for everybody to understand that
and see what we need to be doing to make sure that our early childhood is sustainable for the long term. So do y'all have a presentation to make? No,
Speaker 19
9:54
ma'am. Just, I guess, for the record, I believe the Department of Education.
Speaker 22
9:57
We don't have formal presentations. I think our understanding is it's going to be kind of like a workshop where we're just going to dialogue. I think our hope today, because I think the last time we were in a committee meeting was such a big committee meeting that we wanted to kind of get maybe a smaller group of folks
together to help get some better direction and understanding of what's the state of the state as far as our investment in early education so we didn't bring a formal presentation today but we're prepared to I guess engage in some dialogue if that okay if that's okay
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
10:32
with you great that sounds great do you want to start with just
Speaker 28
10:36
some basics yeah yeah because I always go back
Speaker 22
10:40
to i want to say our last committee meeting was focused more on the abc program and the state
program and how much funding was in that program because we were looking at the methodology where all the the students seats were paid for an entire year whether they were filled or not and we've been working with the abc providers which is a large number of them are school districts on if you can't fill these slots we want to look at reallocating them to places that don't that have waiting lists and how do we better balance those seats because we we've had previous
conversations before the holidays around the ccdf program but the most recent ones and we're prepared to speak to both programs and i think i don't think you can talk about one program without talking about the other if that makes sense
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
11:33
because at the end of the day and sra
Speaker 19
11:36
and sra because some families qualify for multiple, some providers have all of the options. So it's a really complicated space, which is why we brought the expert who is much more knowledgeable at navigating this landscape.
Speaker 22
11:49
And I think about it as just, you know, I'm a parent, but I don't have kids of this age. And it's like if it's frustrating for me to understand, I couldn't imagine trying to be a parent, trying to figure out how do they qualify and what programs and seats that are available. But I think part of the biggest conversations that we had most specifically was about the ABC programs. And we were talking about historically, have we found how many seats were paid for? Are those the right number of seats?
Do we need to pay more to providers? Do we need to look at the state appropriation? Has that been flat for a long time? What's the formula for determining reimbursement rates? Should we look at poverty rate requirements and expanding it and open up eligibility that that was kind of our takeaway like as those kinds of questions. I see some head nodding. So I I feel like that that would be a good place to start if that makes if that's fair. I think that's great.
So I guess, Ashlyn, we can kind of talk into this. One of the questions I want to say that we were asked is when was the last time we seen a funding increase or the number of slots? So Ashlyn and her team was able to roll up their sleeves and go a little bit deeper into Arcoff. So if it's okay, I'd like to turn it to her to just kind of start having that initial dialogue. I'd
Speaker 32
13:16
be glad to. Just for the record, Ashlyn Abney, I'm the Education Division Director for the Office of Early Childhood.
I'm new into my role, so I have some information here. But if I cannot answer one of your questions, I'll be glad to take that back to the team. When we were researching the funding for ABC, it looks like to us in 2018, there was a small increase to the ABC funding. Prior to that, for years, it had been flat at $111 million. And then in 2018, there looks like there was about a $3 million bump. So $114 million is the budget that we're operating off of.
And I believe that that was one of the questions. And that is one of the concerns that we hear often from the provider base is the funding has been limited in that
Speaker 35
14:04
program as compared to the CCDF side or the Child Care Development Fund, which is our federal money
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
14:13
that comes down for us. And the difference in those two as far as providers is concerned. So CCDF, federal, pays for what, and what does ABC
Speaker 32
14:25
maybe you all have heard it as SRA or School Readiness Assistance,
or sometimes back in the day, depending on how long you've been in this business, it would be child care vouchers. And so with SRA, there are eligibility requirements, much like ABC, but CCDF is our federal-funded, whereas on the ABC side, of course, you all know that that is our state-funded regulations. So just in comparison, we have about $137 million that comes from CCDF on the SRA side compared to, like I said, $114 million on the ABC state side.
There are some nuances that are different between the programs that might be helpful for you all to consider when you're thinking through this with us ABC is a 10-month program and so sometimes it's difficult for parents because it runs along the school calendar essentially and so parents are left trying to determine what to do during the summer months especially but also the hours in the day are a little bit different so sometimes those programs will end earlier in the day than say
on the sra side which is your your typical private center-based facilities that you all have probably heard about so there's a difference there um i'm trying to think of some overall numbers let me give you this at the i was just about to say um enrollment is important i think for you all to to just know for abc we serve about 23 000 children in our abc program predominantly those are preschool age. A lot of times when people are thinking about ABC, they'll think it's only
four-year-olds, but it's mainly four-year-olds, but three and fours, and then some centers have started doing infinite taller as well. But just for the breakdown, to kind of get your head around that, there's 20,000 students out of that 23,000 that are preschool age. Also, we just want to give you some fast facts that might help in the conversation. There are about 1,800 Lawson's providers in our state. 1,700 of those are centered base and 193 are home base. In comparison
in the ABC programs, there are about 221 providers total that participate in the ABC programs. Of those, like Secretary Oliva said, predominantly are schools. There are 151 of those compared to 49 private and 21 home visiting. Roughly, we serve about 14,871 children over on SRA side. So that's important.
And that is the one, the program that sometimes you will hear from your circle of influence about a wait list. And we have about 2,800 children on the wait list for SRA. I'll stop
Speaker 35
17:39
right there. That's a lot of talking. I'm glad to answer any questions or
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
17:45
continue on. What about rural versus urban and tiered, financially tiered numbers?
Speaker 32
17:50
Do you have those? I do not have those in front of me, but I can absolutely
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
17:58
get that for you and give you some information about that. I think that would be helpful.
I think a lot of the providers who would have liked to use ABC can't do it because it's
just cost prohibitive. Because if they're not in a school system, then they have to pay for their own rent. They have to pay for all of those kinds of things that
are funded in other ways in the public school system.
Speaker 22
18:25
Yeah, I think the public schools, to meet the MASH, can use indirect costs. So that puts those
Speaker 44
18:31
smaller private providers at a little bit more of
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
18:37
a disadvantage. Right. So if we're increasing ABC and focusing on more school-based, I don't want to get to the point where we're leaving out our
home-based and center-based programs, especially if we're taking three- and four-year-olds out and there's no funding for infant and toddler.
And maybe that would be helpful if you talk about funding, the differences in funding K-12 per person and
the differences in funding early childhood. Because you've got to have the reimbursement from those older kids to subsidize the infant and toddlers because it's just a market fail. You can't do it if you don't have those other pieces of
Speaker 45
19:26
the puzzle. Yes, ma'am. That is something my team and I looked
Speaker 32
19:32
at. So for an ABC student, roughly the cost per student that is paid is $5,105.
And my understanding of what it is in the K-12 world would be up around the $8,000 mark. So that's the difference between
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
19:53
very helpful. Thank you. And then I would love to, if you'll let staff know about rural and urban, because that's the other issue, I think, if we're looking at school-based,
there are definitely some deserts out there in both directions, so that would be helpful to know.
Speaker 32
20:14
Absolutely, I'll do that. It's actually something I've not thought about, so I'm interested now, too, since you brought it up. Just see what the
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
20:20
difference is. Okay. Great. What else, committee? Representative Mayberry?
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
20:38
Thank you. You know I always have a lot of questions. Not as many as Representative Duke sometimes has though, but she'd laugh at that.
Anyway, so first of all, I'm sorry if you said it, I missed it. I know that you said that it was $111 million before, and then in 2018 it was $114 million of money that goes to the ABC program, so there was a $3 million increase. How long had it been at $111 million? If you said it, I missed it. I'm sorry. That's okay. I did not
Speaker 54
21:14
say it. Okay. In the 2009-2010 was when it went to $111 million.
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
21:20
okay that that's a pretty long time ago and that wasn't that much of an increase in in um 2018 at that time so uh and then and then you were commenting that that you know abc abc school funding is at 5100 5105 i think is what you said and you know what we pay for um students now in k through 12 yet our teacher to student ratio is far different especially if we look at um infant
care is it is it one in five for infant care um and that is certainly not what it is for k through 12 i mean even kindergarten is is different than you know the high school ages so there there's a big difference and if we if we really want to make sure that our kids are reading by third grade which i agree i mean i think that we we don't want children um not being able to read because then everything else falls apart right what i love about the learns act was moving it over to
ade all this i think i've said this a few times i can't say it enough because we're looking at children learning from birth all the way up that's i know i'm talking to the early childhood educator here and i know you agree you know birth to three is when the brain expands the most and we really need to focus on making sure that we're putting the foundation there so so when we're looking at five thousand dollars versus eight thousand dollars for this same student how much
how much can we move that needle um i i know there's a big picture of and and it requires legislators getting involved it's not just ADE but this is probably more for for our commissioner here do you see us being able to apply more money into this area of education in this next coming session either fiscal session or in the next legislative session yeah I think that's
Speaker 22
23:28
I don't want to speak to more money in the fiscal session because everybody
adopts two-year budgets but looking long-term as we're looking at a state investment in education I think that needs to be part of the conversation there there are a little bit of differences in early learning in k-12 we have compulsory attendance laws and a whole lot more requirement on k-12 than we have in early learning so I don't think just throwing money at the problem is going to fix the fact that we still have deserts and islands we still have lack of access to good teachers we still have access you know challenges to some
resources but I think that's a big part of why and in the learns act was establishing the local leads putting everything in one agency under one agency is that we have boots on the ground to help us identify what are those gaps what are those needs where the resources is there going to be a need for more of a state investment I would imagine right it's hard to have this conversation without allocating resources, but as we really make that transition to quality and how do we define quality and align payment structures to quality not just environment
is how you're going to get those kids or those young children ready for kindergarten so that third grade reading scores go up and this is if there's anything good about these conversations of where there's been a challenge is we've got a lot of folks that are coming to the table from all over the state to help define quality and make sure that we align our reimbursement payment structures with you know if we're looking at better beginnings rating system do we need to reimagine that and if we're going to reimagine that this would be a good time to do it and then
what are the right dollars that we want to allocate for reimbursements
Speaker 64
25:17
with that I agree with everything you just said it is
Speaker 32
25:21
an ongoing conversation that my team and I have in the office about how do we make sure that we are fully aligned with the k-12 world and that whatever we're doing down in the birth to five and especially love that you said birth to three because you're absolutely right and it's rare i hear people talk about it so that's exciting but we want to fully align ourselves with whatever's happening in k-12 so as an example
when we're talking about quality even a piece that we are talking about is an assessment that lives down in the early childhood world that will then connect into what they're doing on at the kindergarten level so that's just one example of the ongoing conversations that we're having all around the line that
Speaker 28
26:03
you're speaking about and and i'll tell you um
Speaker 22
26:06
because we've been visiting a lot of schools lately and we we were visiting a program in pine bluff at an elementary school there and i was blown away with what these students were doing in a four-year-old classroom
with a good licensed teacher that had the right resources I was like this is gonna change the trajectory of these kids lives it was impressive I would encourage the legislature to visit some of these programs because it'll show you why
Speaker 62
26:35
we need to have this conversation it's not a babysitting service so
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
26:40
so if you don't mind okay so yeah we had the learns act two sessions ago last session we had access for higher ed can we work now towards maybe simplifying I mean
you were just talking about how complicated it is the SRA the the ABC and and some way simplifying some of that so that we're not talking about this fun and this fun and this fun and just make it easier for our child care providers as
Speaker 22
27:14
personally I think that would be fantastic and i think that's why we want to work with these work groups that we have vested because there's things that we can do at the local level right to help and invite that
conversation to improve quality things that we can do at the state level that's under our purview right here which is why we've been talking a lot about the abc program versus the federal programs because we get to make our own rules it's our sandbox right but then there's things that I think collectively as a state we can work on at the federal level and we are we are in a prime position to have the administration that we have that understands that the federal bureaucrats
don't know what's right for students in Arkansas and are encouraging us to untackle those laws see if we can apply for waivers and come collectively
Speaker 72
28:08
with a plan that's built from the local state and the federal level to take the handcuffs that they put on us each and every single day, not only in this early learning space, but in K-12 and higher ed. Those bureaucrats handcuff innovation, and these programs are handcuffed too. And if we can collectively come up with a waiver to be set free
and do what we know is right for our students and families, there is no better opportunity to align that vision and i think if we were able to go to the feds that says we have a local and state policy that supports what we're asking for from a federal waiver requirement it really increases our likelihood of getting
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
28:51
those waivers okay i still have more questions but i'll let others ask
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
28:55
thank you thank you as a follow-up a quick follow-up to representative mayberry
can you talk a little bit about the other side obviously when we moved early
childhood to education the collaboration with k-12 is immensely important what about what about those prenatal to three programs are you working with i assume some of those are still in in dhs or department of health mostly department of health maybe hippie some of the hippie you
tell me yes are you working with the early childhood to collaborate with them so that that transition is
as seamless as the K-12.
Speaker 15
29:36
Yes, ma'am, and thank you for mentioning that. Listen, I will talk to anybody and everybody
Speaker 32
29:42
that will talk with me about early ed, particularly birth to three. And so it is important to my team and to me that we continue those conversations because a lot of great work has happened over the course of years in early ed in that age bracket. So my hope is to keep tying it all together. And there's even discussions I've been in recently about prenatal, which piques my interest.
But my responsibility is absolutely birth through five. So I do work on both ends of that from when their
Speaker 15
30:16
little feet hit the earth all the way up to when I pass them on to Kinder. So,
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
30:22
yes, ma'am, we are. And did you inherit those programs? Are they still? Department of
Speaker 32
30:28
Health still has a few. There are some that are scattered around that, honestly, I'm still learning about myself. Like Part B, Part C, and our special needs are under with us as well.
So home visiting, of course, is outside of our program at the ADE, but we visit and coordinate back and forth with those just through the grants that we do with local partners, whether that's the university or other entities, we do that as well. So the conversation is continuing all the way across the continuum. Yes, ma'am. Great, thank you. Oh, yes, and Head Start. So recently we will be taking back the Head Start State Collab Office
will join us at the Arkansas Department of Ed. That will be a newly hired position that we have not yet done. we're waiting on our extension we haven't been noticed up on that yet but once that happens then the state collab office will also come and join us great thank you very much yes ma'am
Speaker 50
31:33
representative painter thank you madam chair and this
Representative Stetson Painter
Unverified
31:37
is just a request you had some great facts that you were throwing out really really really quick i'm sorry so if you could send us that to our staff
uh i think that will help us have that conversation when it comes to looking at funding and so forth like that
Speaker 33
31:53
perfect can i can i just clarify um like like when we're talking about the enrollment the dollar yes history the amount absolutely yes and that that one pager yeah because
Representative Stetson Painter
Unverified
32:04
that will help me understand where we're lacking sure and you know facts speak you know so i appreciate that Thank you,
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
32:11
Madam Chair. Thank you. Representative Barnett?
Representative Lincoln Barnett
Unverified
32:17
Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a question. I know many of the concerns that we had before were dealing with the Child Care Development Block Grant changes, and I know that since that time the state of Arkansas has received a $14.7 million federal grant, and I wanted to know how those grant dollars are going to be implemented. Are they going to be implemented in any way to supplement some of those changes with CCDBG? Or will it be used in any way to reduce the number of students?
I think it was approximately 1,100 that were on a wait list. I'm interested in knowing how those federal dollars are going to be implemented. Great question, and thank
Speaker 22
32:59
you for asking that. And this is, I think, as I'm learning in space, which is why I need these experts, I wish that could give you an easy answer it gets a little bit complicated but I do want to point out that when when we were in front of the committee meetings I want to say it was probably around in November and we were looking at rate changes and answering a lot of
questions because we got a reduction in funding at the at the federal level and we knew that was going to impact our PDG grant and our CCDF grant and we were trying to unpack why we got a third quarter or fourth quarter reduction in the previous year cycle and why that's impacted over current years one of the things that we made a commitment to as an agency into the delegation was that if there are any competitive grants that become available we were going to be the first state to have the application in the hopper and i mean i remember specifically making that
commitment and the grant you're referring to was a competitive grant and we had an incredible application and our team worked with stakeholders and came together and met the deadlines of that grant was able to receive that grant for some funding to make sure to to do exactly what you're saying about how do we kind of look at filling in our shortfalls and our gaps because it's a one-year grant and I'll let Ashland talk about how that works because it's gonna help some because we
Speaker 44
34:28
can take some of the burden of costs that may have been in other
Speaker 32
34:38
programs and use the competitive grants but it's not going to make us whole that's right so you're referring to
Speaker 15
34:45
what's called the pdg b5 grant um preschool development block grant and it's we did receive 14.741 million dollars and we were super excited the thing to remember
Speaker 32
34:54
about that grant is it is a systems building grant. So whereas before you might have seen some of the funding go out
specifically towards services to children, this particular grant is not a direct services grant, but like Secretary Oliva
Speaker 15
35:09
was saying, it will help us to use some of the money that we would have historically used under CCDF to meet the needs under and be able to fund it a different way through the pdg grant it's also really important to note with that pdg grant is a one-year grant so it is a very quick aggressive fast-paced grant that has to be out of the door by december 31st
of this year so some of the things that we're doing is it's going to help with the local leads that you've heard mentioned before it's also going to help us with the third party class observations so class is the observation tool that we'll be using in our facilities and at our sites to determine help us determine a quality level it's also going to be geared towards workforce and also towards data systems so we're excited to see where that goes we have not
we do not have all of those fully sketched out and organized i know the direction that we're going to go in but here quickly we should be able to give more information about exactly what we're doing with that thank you I just want to remind you guys that there
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
36:27
is a an acronym sheet from the first committee
that's in the document section of the first committee that will have all of these acronyms for all of the grants and tell you what
they do and what they don't do representative bought
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
36:42
thank you madam chair and thank you for getting us that list um i just want to go back and touch just a couple of things because like representative painter it was very fast for me to try to keep keep up and catch on so you probably already answered this question what's our current percentage of abc slots allowed to community-based slots so the community base versus the school does that make sense why i'm asking yes ma'am i believe so
Speaker 15
37:14
and i'll i apologize you all i'll try to slow down a little bit
Speaker 32
37:24
for us and we've been in meetings upon meetings at this point so i understand and i apologize okay of the 221 providers that we have right now 138 of those are school districts. Ten of them are educational service co-ops. Three are public universities.
Forty-six are community-based programs. Three are family child care homes. And
Speaker 15
37:52
twenty-one fall under the home visiting category. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. so the last time i
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
38:02
asked about slots i'm not sure that my question really got answered in the email maybe so i want
to know like do we have people who are turning away slots
whether they're in the community base or whether they're in the school base whichever way do we have those returning to y'all and
if we do then do you allocate those
Speaker 15
38:31
slots somewhere else so yes ma'am to answer your question we do have some that will turn
Speaker 32
38:37
back their slots that's in my short time here unusual right it has happened since i've been here we actually go to the state board whenever we need to look at slot reallocation or moving slots
Speaker 15
38:52
so we actually do have a plan to go for march to talk about the number of slots okay that that's my questions for
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
39:00
now i have more but i can get back in thank you
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
39:04
ma'am and just to add to that um how many community-based providers have turned in slots have turned in back turn back slots do you know i do not
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
39:17
it either declined or returned that'd be great thank you representative gonzalez-worth
thank you madam chair i have a couple of questions one on the i think you mentioned 1100 or on the wait list 2800 2800 yes ma'am and then out of those 2800 do we know how many the division point of um like zero to three and foreign four-year-olds it's sitting
Speaker 39
39:53
on my desk I will absolutely get that for you.
Speaker 32
39:57
I know that the families that are waiting are 2,080, and there's about 2,800 on there. But I can give you
Speaker 15
40:07
that breakdown. I actually have it, and I feel to bring it with me.
Speaker 21
40:13
I'm sorry. I have a follow-up question, Madam Chair. My question
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
40:21
is, I know that there is, I think, in one of our committee meetings, Secretary, you mentioned that we are going to be really working on a kindergarten readiness plan.
And so I wondered what that might look like. Is that going to be part of this, the one-year grant in terms of systems improvement related to, I too am very concerned about the third grade reading level. And so when I'm thinking about what a wonderful way to ensure that our kids are ready for kindergarten, if we have enough slots to fill for the families to get that pre-K or infant-toddler, and then they're moving through the system, they should be, or pretty much should be, kindergarten-ready,
Representative Justin Gonzales
Unverified
41:13
where our third-grade reading level should be increasing.
Speaker 22
41:20
Yeah, I think that's the whole spirit of why we're here today, ultimately with that same goal. And I think we know kind of even what the research says around that investment in early learning and making sure we're really driving those conversations of quality. Because if children have access to quality early learning environments, then we know there's a direct correlation to improved kindergarten readiness.
And as we've been kind of navigating looking at improving, say, better beginnings that's built on an environmental rating scale to a class observation tool, we know that that kind of theory of action is that we can help improve quality while we establish those local leads to help provide direct support with those educators in the classroom and kind of standardizing our observations. is kind of like some inter-rater reliability components on that so when when you talk about
the seeds i think it's almost like a two-prong approach because one is is when you look at access you have parents and families that want to participate in high quality early learning programs but if you're in kind of what i refer to as like a desert island like there's not a quality program within say 50 miles of your house it's you really don't have an opportunity right so one is how do we identify those deserts and islands which is what we've been working on to
see if we can find somebody that might want to open a program whether it's a mom-and-pop provider work with a school district a faith-based partner those conversations are happening and then two if there's are there are parts of the states that just have long waiting lists because they're the centers that are open are full and they're at capacity so you know it's kind of a two-pronged approach but I think the short answer to your question is is we want to improve quality but while we're doing that we
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
43:29
got to improve access you know as we're talking about third grade reading levels one of the one
of the best indicators for third grade reading is vocabulary at three years old. So if we don't have zero to three development, then, you know, we're lost before we ever get there. So if we wait for four and five, we're waiting too long. Representative Ennett.
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
44:01
Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a question over here, right here. When was the last Arkansas specific cost of quality study conducted for ABC and SRA. And if you already addressed it, I forgive me. No, ma'am, I haven't. It was
Speaker 39
44:19
about three years ago because we're coming up on needing to do another market rate survey right
Speaker 15
44:26
now, actually. So my team is looking at a request for proposals on that, and we should be doing it shortly.
We are also very interested in the actual cost of care, so it's been a minute. Thank
Speaker 30
44:46
you. Yes, ma'am. And just to add on to that,
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
44:50
our current reimbursement rates are directly related to that particular cost modeling. So we use that for our reimbursement rates now, and that was three years ago? Yes, ma'am. It was roughly three years ago.
And what is the break-even point? So how many, at
the current reimbursement, how many students can be enrolled in a standard ABC classroom to cover the
fixed and staffing costs? Do you know offhand? I do not
Speaker 39
45:26
know offhand. I would imagine it would be veritable, depending on the school district, Because
Speaker 32
45:32
what I do know, or even the private ABC, because there has to be a certified teacher per the ABC rule.
But there's some leeway in that on how many they have compared to how many students they have. So I'll write down that question and see if I
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
45:54
can get you an average break-in cost. Just wondered. Would that work? And what the difference is between school-based and center-based and home-based. Just trying to figure out the barriers as much as anything. Yes,
Speaker 32
46:07
ma'am. I didn't think about looking at that, and I should have. One of the things that my team did look at, though, is just the whole, like, how much would it cost in today's dollars compared to the way it is funded?
And I know that that amount was around $175 million would be what the ABC program would need. So that's a little bit different. And those are rough estimates. That's just us trying to look and, yep. Okay, Representative Wildridge. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you
Representative Jeremy Wooldridge
Unverified
46:43
for being here. I have a question about federally funded slots. That may be something that you've covered, and it was under an acronym that I didn't recognize.
But I know when I visited with the school in the district I served, they were talking about having an allotment of federally funded spots and that they had received notification that that funding was potentially going away. Is that funding that's being, I think what I was told by someone at the department, was that funding was being put into a different bucket, and I guess
Speaker 32
47:13
it's all going to be funded out of SRA funds. Is that right? Very close. So you're talking
Speaker 15
47:19
about what was or what is called the federal pre-K program. I think that's correct. Yes. Okay, federal pre-K has always been CCDF money.
Speaker 32
47:27
It was just another program that was set up to help support ABC. That is going to come to an end at the end of June of this fiscal year. Those children that are in those
Speaker 15
47:45
programs will be rolled into ABC slots if the particular program is an ABC participant, many of them are, or those children will go
Speaker 32
47:55
back through and be eligible and run through the eligibility criteria for the SRA side.
Representative Jeremy Wooldridge
Unverified
48:03
Okay. Can I have a follow-up, Madam Chair? Absolutely. Thank you. So will those slots or those children that are in those slots, will they automatically qualify since there's a waiting list, or will they get put at the back of a
Speaker 32
48:19
list even though they're in a funded spot currently? Okay, so what will happen is they will have to qualify depending on which way they're going. So some children will go into ABC. Chances are they're already going to qualify for the ABC criteria. Or if they're moving over
Speaker 15
48:34
to the CCDF side, they'll need to qualify there.
You had another question. Oh, grandfathering in. They will not. So they'll have to meet the criteria of whichever program that they're in. But they will get to bypass the wait list since they were already in a program. Okay. That's what I wanted to know. Thank you. Yes, sir.
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
49:01
representative mayberry thank you so in the fall we had all this discussion um over the sras and and basically put a band-aid on on the system as a whole and i know we had lots of providers who
were here i know you remember um and many of them were saying that they're going to have to go out of business that they're not going to be this is not sustainable we can't do it many of them said that the plan that we went forward with, you know, will help get them through a little bit. So I first want to ask, how many are you aware of have dropped since, you know, let's say, I don't know, October? How many child cares around the state no longer exist?
Speaker 28
49:43
To my knowledge, since we've began those discussions that have notified us that they're closing because of a change
Speaker 22
49:51
in funding statewide was I want to say six providers but since then with our new rates we've added 26 new providers into the state as well so some of them have changed locations some people are changing names some change their providers so we actually have more providers now with a new race than we did under the old rates and I think it's important to remind everybody the reason we started having this discussion is
because we got a federal allocation reduction, right, that we weren't planning on and that dollar amount's continuing, and it was about $6 million a year. So we've been working with our friends at the federal level to try to unpack this formula to determine why we got such a big reduction because we don't feel like our poverty rate went down in the state. And what we're leaning towards as we're still unpacking this, we don't have all the answers yet is a lot of these programs are built around meal reimbursements
that are happening in school and because we have not made going to school five days a week a priority and holding school districts or 178 days a school year they're having less school and serving less meals that is impact our reimbursements rates in this grant and will
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
51:08
also reimpact reimbursement rates in a lot of other grants okay just just looking at the notes that were given representative Garner gave us this piece of paper you said you you got it earlier today the summary of the survey responses for school readiness
assistant providers and I'm just reading you know just some of that information here because I feel like this is that the people who might not be able to be in this room just sharing their thoughts and and many of them saying we lost almost 20% of our families because of the sudden steep increase in what they would have to pay. We lost families in the after-school program immediately, and they became latchkey kids, which creates a whole other slew of problems. I heard today about a child who was six years old and left at home. That's a scary thing. Co-pays have had a significant impact on
the families we serve. We lost enrolled families due to the financial burden, causing many to reduce their hours at work um so so i mentioned earlier this is an education thing really important we we want children to learn but it is also a workforce issue it is the foundation to our workforce when parents have to reduce their hours at work the business kind of struggles um what what are what are you you seeing regarding the the co-pays are you hearing the
same thing that a lot of families are not able to match these
Speaker 22
52:41
co-pays? Well I think we hear from all of the above and sometimes when we look at the intent of that federal grant the intent of that federal grant was always have co-pays we just didn't implement them so yeah it's is it something that's a new requirement is it painful a hundred percent do we want to do it no but we knew we had look at the long-term sustainability of this program and make immediate changes
because we were getting reductions that we hadn't planned on and which is why since August October November December as we've been having these conversations I feel like the conversation around access to child care workforce needs respite care kindergarten readiness should revolve more around state programs instead of relying on a federal grant that changes in every session and we don't know the long-term facts on that you know the the budget look at how long
it's been taken to get some of the federal dollars into a budget and meanwhile we got to make payments to providers at some point if we were not able to draw down funds I don't have to tell providers it's gone like our when when we look at projected fund balance and reserves we're we're payment to payment and we we had to make those changes we they weren't popular but we had to make them otherwise we wouldn't have programs at all right now and hopefully if we can get more competitive grants as we start getting more
strategic and state programs if we can offset in state programs some of the burden that's in the federal grant I think that could open up more dollars to providers to reducing seats and helping cover those administrative costs like trying to find that balance and and that's where you know when we talk about what you know what's the future I think somebody asked like what's the future I think that's the conversation because if we can alleviate burden in the federal
grant and I'll give you an example we used to pay for the data reporting system that was on a contract on how we collect all this data that had been on a main frame since 2007 and the cost of that software to be held and updated with a contract provider came out of that grant right the cost of doing that grant so as it moved to our agency they rebuilt a whole new system called kid care and it you know is it a smooth and easy transition no there's hiccups but
we built that in-house with existing staff to come off that contract with that coming in-house it frees up dollars in that contract like in the ccdf grant so we have to look at as we move forward how do we protect the dollars and in administrative costs or overhead costs or or grants to to programs that's not directly supporting families and the second we said like you know there's professional development requirements there's other components in here but if we want to prioritize
providers and families and we started notifying some of these universities that we're reducing their funds they started complaining too right so um at some point there's a ceiling there's a pie and
Speaker 72
56:04
i always like to say when you're building budgets if the pie doesn't get any bigger all we have is the pie and if you want different pieces of that pie to go to somebody else which neighbor is getting a larger piece and which neighbor is getting a smaller piece because right now our pie shrunk and that's what's the painful part and it's hard for people to understand
we didn't get the same pie from last year to this year and we're not getting the same pie next year every year the pie has gotten smaller and everybody wants a bigger piece of a smaller pie so this isn't fun this isn't easy but i think there's opportunity because with looking at the state investment if we can protect that pie and I feel like I hear from the legislature when we protect that pie we want to protect families and
Speaker 22
56:56
the providers that are supporting those families of their over other
institutions and sometimes those aren't popular decisions but they have to be made are there any changes to the home visiting
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
57:07
programs the hippie program maybe even specifically do you see any changes taking place there I think that's a great question and I think as we're unpacking some of
Speaker 22
57:14
these programs I think there are students and families that are double dipping and then when I come back to you and say we're not going to let families double dip you're going to hear from them too right so so explain to me how they're double
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
57:31
dipping what what's taking place you've discovered some double dipping there
Speaker 39
57:37
okay two million a year so in the home visiting
Speaker 32
57:43
section of abc there's roughly 3 000 children that i mentioned to you all about and of that 1200 are what we call duly enrolled meaning that they have a service that's provided to them in their home where the the home visiting folks will
Speaker 15
58:05
teach the parent the curriculum and the parents then in turn teach their children the curriculum which is a wonderful thing. At the same time those 1,200 children are also being served dually in
Speaker 32
58:18
an ABC program meaning they're going to an ABC program. So it is one of the things that is a potential consideration that if we just limit it to one like choose one or the other that would save us about 2.4 million and for me that translates out to about 470 children
so it's just something that we can consider
Speaker 116
58:41
as we're all talking about it you know together right okay that's good information to
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
58:47
know you had mentioned kind of what started all this was that you were going notifying the school districts about the abc slots that they have if they're not using them um you know you're going to basically you're not going to get paid for them because that's the way it is with the other sra program right if they're if you don't have someone enrolled you you you don't get that payment but the way it's been with abc if i'm understanding it
correctly is that they were being paid regardless because they had a slot um kind of update us with what those figures are have you um communicating with the school districts and sharing that information and kind of worked through all that
Speaker 32
59:32
i wouldn't say we've worked through all of it but we definitely are uh yes it is an ongoing um thing that we are looking at but just to give you a little bit of perspective so by paying for enrollment only instead of slots allocated in
january we saved 576 000 so in in my world that's big and so it's just another thing that we can consider looking at in terms of how do we get as many children served at the end of the day that we possibly can with a very limited budget okay um speaking
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
1:00:11
of abc i know of a school district that would like to add um preschool um to to their offerings there and they have space
but it's going to require quite a bit to prepare a classroom for preschool and especially a playground. A playground is pretty expensive to add because it can't be the same as the other school playground, developmentally appropriate for the preschool age. I had a bill, not last session, but the session before, that would have allowed school districts to apply foundation funding to be used for pre-K,
because currently they can't? Is that something that can be discussed, maybe put on the table as an opportunity to allow some school districts to make use of funding that already exists? And I realize that pie is getting smaller, too, and building costs go up and all
that. or is there some other avenue to help the school districts with building?
Speaker 22
1:01:17
Yeah, to me, one, I think it's a fair question to have that discussion because I do think it would require some legislative changes or rule changes or some more direction.
But at some point I just feel like when do we just start doing things that are common sense, right? Like if a bus is going to a house to pick up a six-year-old but we can't pick up a three-year-old, like at what point does that just not make sense, right? If we're going to a playground that could serve five-year-olds and four-year-olds, why couldn't we do what's right? So I think I would need to unpack that a little bit more. But if it's a school that's serving students and families, like most of our communities, and I always love going to, like, economic development meetings where we're talking about industry and bringing everybody in,
and I always like to remind them that the school districts are the number one employers in most of our communities, right? So when the school districts are thriving, communities are thriving. Everybody in the community has some sort of connection to the school districts. School districts don't only hire teachers. They hire electricians. They hire plumbers. They hire bus drivers, diesel mechanics. They hire everything and cover the entire spectrum. So if this is going to be a service to a community, how do we invest in that service? I don't know all the answers, but I think collectively we
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
1:02:35
okay well that that definitely would would help this particular school district if they could you know make use of their current playground and maybe even just add another smaller piece of equipment because the size of what a three-year-old can get on is a little different than the size of what the you know eight nine ten eleven year old you know wants to play on in the height you know the fall and and all that but um that would would definitely help them but also just funding they they said that the classroom would cost now they have a building um so they're not starting from scratch but they said that each classroom was going to cost them about $15,000
to prepare that classroom to meet the requirements that are that are there currently furniture I mean
Speaker 28
1:03:16
like those classrooms look different have different furniture and
Speaker 44
1:03:18
it it's an investment it's a capital investment okay so just throwing that out there that that that there
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
1:03:25
are school districts that are probably interested um and want this but they they need a little bit of support to be able to do that and I think it's great that school districts want to get
Speaker 22
1:03:39
in this space and to me that's encouraging because they're seeing the value
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
1:03:45
in that as well okay I'll get out of the queue if
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:03:50
there's representative Gonzales Worthen yes thank you thank you madam chair thank you for being here and my question had to do with the hippie program as well so I so So if a family is in the HIPPY program, then technically they're not supposed to be in the ABC program. Is that kind of what I'm hearing? Or when it was mentioned that they're duly enrolled, I'm just asking.
Speaker 39
1:04:15
Yes, they can currently be enrolled in both. Okay. And so they can be home visiting. Okay. And they can be ABC,
Speaker 15
1:04:23
in the ABC program. So there's not a – we're
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:04:27
not saying you only can be in one and not the other. No, ma'am, I was saying
Speaker 16
1:04:33
that could be a consideration. I would make
Speaker 22
1:04:35
that recommendation. I'll be clear. These families are double-dipping, and we have families on a waiting list. We need to use our resources wisely and efficiently. We've got – this pie is not growing.
We've got to expand this pie to as much reach as we can. I don't know what it would take to make that an action, but that's something that I
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:04:57
would recommend. Yeah, I was just curious because I could see parents in our community where they're trying to do everything they can to ensure that their kids are kindergarten ready, they're ready for school. Additionally, they're also learning English, and so they're trying to get their hands on as much learning as they can. That was part of my question related to that.
And so do you see the hippie program or programs like the home visiting type of programs expanding upon that so that we can ensure that kids are kindergarten ready? Last week when we were talking about chronic absenteeism, And oftentimes that kindergarten age, that's one of the red flag grade levels, so to speak, where parents are afraid to, I mean, you know, it's okay.
You can miss school. It's just kindergarten. Okay, they're not, they don't see the, they're not quite, they don't see the impact that it can have on that child because that's where all of those pre-literacy foundational skills are taught is at that kindergarten level. However, if we're able to increase more of the home visiting type of programs, at least they're in something, whether it's the home visiting or whether it's the preschool program, just to help with that piece,
because I think that we could reduce that. And so that was my question with the HIPPY program. Thank
Speaker 28
1:06:41
you. So I want to echo your sentiment towards chronic absenteeism. and when you look at
Speaker 22
1:06:49
what the data says there's a there's a myriad of reasons why students are chronically absent but typically if if a student misses 10% or more of the school year they're considered chronically absent which could be 17 days depending on your school calendar which is like two days
a month in a school year and you know when it comes to kindergarten there there's sometimes a sense of apathy around the importance of it because it's not compulsory you know when you start looking at compulsory attendance laws that come in typically I want to say it's age six to 17 in Arkansas every state's a little bit different we we need
Speaker 72
1:07:29
to model that it's important which is why I'm an advocate for every single school district to adopt 178 day school calendar so when you think about these school districts that
adopt 136 calendar day calendar and chronic absenteeism is a problem and then we close for ice storms are we modeling that school's important as an adult to students so I agree with you we need to set the expectation as adults that going to school is important and when kids do come to school we need to guarantee
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:08:09
they get a day of high quality learning sure I agree that school is extremely important and parents oftentimes just my experience with
families sometimes they don't do not know that not sending their child to school in kindergarten the detrimental effect and impact it can have on the child and it doesn't take very long When you say, okay, your kids are not in school, they're less likely to be reading on grade level by third grade, they're less likely to graduate high school, they're more likely to drop out of school, and last week we heard our kids who are incarcerated, 80% of them
are not reading on third grade reading level. And so I think that oftentimes parents really do not know that information. That's been our experience. Parents just didn't know that. And once they know that, I mean, what parent wants their child to have those detrimental impacts? My question related to the pre what we're doing before kindergarten, they're going to be learning that because I'm sure that the hippie program and the preschool programs are also saying it's important to send your child to school at every grade level.
and that's and so that's that's kind of a that's the message but it's ongoing and so that that was the reason for my question so thank you thank you representative painter thank you madam chair and
Representative Stetson Painter
Unverified
1:09:43
sorry i missed this so if we would not allow double dipping here it would save us about 2.4 million how many kids did you just say we could take off the wish the wait list roughly 470 470 I hope we take
Speaker 155
1:09:58
a look at that soon yes sir I have some
Speaker 39
1:10:04
information to share back representative Garner if it's okay to one of the questions
Speaker 15
1:10:10
and it was the wait list by age group is this an appropriate time
Speaker 32
1:10:17
to share? Sure. Okay. So as of today, so this is an increased number. There are 2,971 children on our wait list. Of those infants, so for us, that is birth to 18 months. There are 638
Toddlers, which is 19 months to 36 months, 769. Preschool, which is 37 months to 72 months, 995. In school age, which would be over the 72 months, is 569. That's helpful. Thank you.
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
1:11:08
you're welcome representative Mayberry thank you back to that dual enrollment thing and I'm just thinking and just wanted to ask the question can you look closely at who is doubly enrolled um is it and maybe you've already done this I don't know but is it possible that some of those children are ones that have been identified as having a developmental delay and perhaps need that reinforcement of the parent kind of learning what they need to be doing at home but also are
working and everything I just want to make sure that we're not having some unintended consequences by just saying there's no way Jose you can ever double dip and make sure that those you know that that's looked at that it's not high risk situations because a lot of times the children who are in the home visiting programs are identified as being high risk. You're absolutely right. And that's
Speaker 32
1:12:08
a fair question. And yes, ma'am, we can do that. I want to make sure that I say from my vantage
point and my boss will correct me if I'm wrong, but home visiting is a great program. It is a great program. I wonder, and my team has collectively been talking about looking at it differently. So for an example, and this is just an example, but looking at it through more
Speaker 15
1:12:36
of a contracted way to pay for that particular seat instead of it coming out of ABC so that we could look more specifically about what is that child currently challenged with if there are any
challenges. So I think that that might open up more leeway for that particular child to get in the appropriate spot that
Speaker 56
1:12:55
they need to be in. And some of those, I'm
Speaker 28
1:12:59
sorry, go ahead. No, what I was going to say, I think to that point, which
Speaker 22
1:13:05
is the importance of why we need Child Find and some of those other programs, because if we can catch students early that need intervention and support, we know the impact on that grows exponentially. And a lot of those students that do go through those programs would qualify for a different pot
of money so that's why i keep
Speaker 19
1:13:25
going back to we've got this is a small space for little small people that's so complicated and nuanced that if we can uncomplicate this system i think we could build better programs which is why i think we could look at some state policies
Speaker 22
1:13:40
but we really need to lean on this friendly administration at the federal level to see if we can look at how they allocate funds and if we can braid and blend dollars to support students and not try to fund a bunch of
siloed programs it can make this a lot easier so I think your question is fair because there may be students that are in these programs that need additional layers of support but if those students are properly identified as needing additional air support that's a different pot of money that can
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
1:14:18
provide that support so perhaps the child qualifies for speech therapy or physical therapy or something at the facility you know the preschool they're getting it at the school
are you saying then that maybe there's another pot of maybe there's medicaid money that then could help compensate for that care depends
Speaker 19
1:14:38
it depends on their age and it depends on which programs that qualify but perhaps like I feel like I'm just giving general dollars because it's not that kind of drive but yes and and and if if
Speaker 22
1:14:52
there's ways to qualify students for additional resources that can protect limited resources we need to make sure we're leveraging
those to the best of our ability I
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
1:15:03
I guess just what went through my mind I mean initially when you say that well no we don't want some of double dipping but then thinking about it more back to when my kids were young, and I've had some that have had developmental delays. I will say I was very fortunate I was able to stay home with my children, and I highly suggest that. So I see all sides of this. But I worry about families who they can't stay home with their child, but they have a child who has developmental delays. The child may have autism or has been
diagnosed with cerebral palsy or whatever it might be and they need that child care so that they can work but they also need some training on their own of what do I need to do and they're not going to get that just by dropping their child off at child care and that's why the hippie program you know probably has helped them and I just want to make sure that we've just not put everybody into the same bucket and that we've thought through some of that because there could be some unintended consequences and and then that child's not getting all that they need to succeed and and all that
um one other thing and i just i just have to question uh if i and i'm sorry i had asked about um how many facilities went out of business and you know other people are watching while we're talking and someone has told me that no child care centers there's actually been 56 can can you clarify the information that that you shared with us saying that there were only six but we added
26 because i'm being told though there's
Speaker 22
1:16:41
actually 56 cited the rate change was their reason for closing there are centers that have closed because they moved there are centers that have changed their program there are centers that didn't cite funding as an issue families don't want their service that every center that has cited a reason for closuring or restructuring yeah there there's more than just six in the state but we've had is it maybe eight six or eight is it eight eight i
said they're on there's eight that cited specifically because of the change of funding okay
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
1:17:16
i just always better clarification as to what you are defining and what you meant i'm sorry I was
Speaker 15
1:17:22
just going to say we are closely watching that. That's very near and dear to my heart, too, just look and see what's happening. And I had heard those numbers as well. And so when we pull down the report to the providers, that will tell us. So there's that caveat. But typically they do tell us why they are closing.
So we have eight on our list that close because of funding. And I counted in that eight any type of funding, whether it was on our part or their
Speaker 56
1:17:52
part or, you know, it didn't matter to me. Just if they unnoted funding, then that's what we counted. Okay. Yes,
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
1:18:00
ma'am. Thank you so much. And thank you for this dialogue. It is so very important. I know that everybody can say different committees have important things, but this is our foundation of so many of our education systems. So thank you.
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
1:18:14
Thank you. Representative Vaught. Thank you. I want to go back to slots because I forgot to ask a question, And I just read my notes and realized I had forgotten this. So when we're allocating new slots, and I think you said y'all are about to go to the state board about this issue. Am I correct in remembering that? Yes, ma'am. There's been a lot come through. What defines need? What defines for each area that they need a new slot? Or can you tell me how y'all define that?
Speaker 15
1:18:45
Yes, ma'am. So we look at a couple of things. First of all, we look at enrollment. So when we have a site that is requesting more seats, we look to see that they were 100% enrolled and that they were maintaining that enrollment. So that's the first thing that we look at. Then we also look at their county service at the poverty level to see what
Speaker 32
1:19:09
percentage of the children are being served already within that county. And so if the percentage of that is 40% or less,
Speaker 15
1:19:18
we try to look to see if slots can be moved to that particular area. Sometimes that works and sometimes not because sometimes there's not the capacity of that particular area to take on more slots. But those are the things that we look at first. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Are there any more questions? for every senator painter not really a
Representative Stetson Painter
Unverified
1:19:44
question maybe a step I just want to clarify when I'm talking about making sure that we take care of maybe the
double dipping is just I just want to make sure we're being efficient you know enough and if we're able to take care of their needs but also help other kids and and take down the wait list I think we should all be
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:20:07
comfortable in doing that I think we're on the same page okay thank you thank you and I'll
just end by And by saying that you have so many people in this room and the rest of the state that are interested in this issue, what can we do to help to make sure that we have family and stakeholders and providers, everybody having input into some of these issues?
I think some of the things that we've talked about when the providers or families have been in the room have been fairly simple changes that could be made. Obviously, I hate the fact that we're looking for grants all over the place to try to fix this. That's not stability. We've got to figure out a way to make sure that child care, that early childhood development and the child care that families need for boosting our economy, that that is a stable environment.
And so I hope that we can still get together frequently to try to see what's going on, to figure out where we are. I hope there's a lot of transparency and accountability in all of these programs so we know what's happening. And I hope that you'll lean on us to try to help figure out. I know the commission's involved. The commission has a task force that's looking into some of these kinds of things. But you've got a room full of people that are interested enough that if we could figure out where we could put some more money, I have a hope we could find it.
So what can we do to make sure that we are making this program the best it can be for the most amount of people with the stability to make sure that everyone knows what's happening? I think that's the frustration in the providers and the families. They just don't know from one day to the next or one month to the next. And I know you guys don't know about funding from one month to the next. So what can we do to fix that? And I think that's the question that I want answered
and certainly willing to do whatever I can do to help make that happen. And I know the folks
Speaker 28
1:22:17
in this room are. So I'll go first, and I think it's a great question, And I think kind of our
Speaker 22
1:22:24
hope, too, as an agency to even kind of fulfill your inquiry is that we do keep this dialogue going. Because, you know, we get blamed as the bad people all the time. But, like, we're actually trying to do everything we can to support students and families and be clear and transparent. And as much as we feel like we communicate, you can never communicate enough, right?
So I think that's a fair criticism. And I think it would be wise of this community. think this is an early learning committee right like it's i think we should have a battle rhythm where as we're meeting we do provide updates even even if the update is no changes from last meeting that it's just letting everybody know that this is important this is a priority this is at the forefront i know like ashlyn and her team are working with those task force and they're in
and they're they want to help come up with a strategy of course right at some point that strategy may look like policy and we may need help down the road if it requires a law change i do think there's um opportunity to look at federal waivers that may help protect some of these programs and serve more families and then as we work with our local leads we're getting a lot of good information and and and i just always want to make sure people know that we and especially
Ashton and I am a big believer in this space I think somebody once told me that and I don't know if this is true research or not but it was like 90 percent of brain development starts before kindergarten but that's less than like one percent of a state budget right like I get it right I don't I'm not here to try to close providers or say they're not doing a good job we've got folks that are working hard each and every single day to give the best quality learning opportunities and care
for children than i've ever seen i am i have been visiting programs all over the state we are doing amazing things we're going i promise you we're going to see an increase in kindergarten readiness we're going to continue to see an increase in third grade literacy scores we didn't get here overnight we're not going to get out of here overnight but we've got to keep this at the forefront because these providers need help the school districts need help the families need access to services and this isn't a one-and-done conversation so I think as we work with the
workforce look at recommendations we should have agency updates like just kind of as our maybe our normal way of work at least through fiscal session and and moving on we're not opposed to that and we may not always have an update or great news but it keeps this conversation going we can't let this like fall to the wayside it's too important to get right and i think that's what you're worried about as well exactly exactly thank you so much and
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:25:20
i appreciate everything you've done with the
commission and with the with the committee i will mention that we have in the past had an early childhood caucus as well and so anybody who's interested let me know and we'll we'll take a look at that as well I think education is just as important as as what we're talking about with policy and with with everything that's going on so anyway thank you very much for everything you guys have done is there any more business to come before this committee with that I'll take a motion to adjourn
thank you second second we are adjourned thank you guys
Agenda
A. Call to Order
B. Consideration of a Motion to Approve the September 30, 2025, Meeting Minutes [Exhibit B]
C. Update on Early Childhood Education
D. Other Business
E. Adjournment
Documents
| Title | Type | Pages | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agenda — EDUCATION - HOUSE EARLY CHILDHOOD SUBCOMMITTEE, Feb 17, 2026 | Agenda | 1 | Official source ↗ |
| EXHIBIT B - Meeting Minutes 9-30-25 | Exhibit | 1 | Official source ↗ |
| HANDOUT C1 - Summary of Survey Responses from SRA Providers | Exhibit | 3 | Official source ↗ |
Speakers
Speaker 4
Speaker 2
Speaker 3
Speaker 5
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
Speaker 19
Speaker 22
Speaker 28
Speaker 32
Speaker 35
Speaker 39
Speaker 44
Speaker 45
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
Speaker 54
Speaker 64
Speaker 62
Speaker 72
Speaker 15
Speaker 50
Representative Stetson Painter
Unverified
Speaker 33
Representative Lincoln Barnett
Unverified
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
Speaker 99
Speaker 21
Representative Justin Gonzales
Unverified
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
Speaker 30
Representative Jeremy Wooldridge
Unverified
Speaker 116
Speaker 92
Speaker 16
Speaker 155
Speaker 56