This week, California Assembly and Senate floor sessions will convene on Monday and Thursday.    

The deadline to introduce bill for the current legislative year was February 17.  A total of 1689 AB bills and 808 SB bill have been introduced.

Both the Assembly and the Senate have begun scheduling budget related hearings.  The first budget hearing has been scheduled for tomorrow, February 28. Click here  to see dates, agendas, and topics relevant to our field.  Moving forward this link  will be updated as budget hearings are scheduled.  When available, the agenda too will be hosted.

 

Click here  to see all of the legislation that has been identified to be of interest to our field. On this page, CAPPA also will be noting legislative hearings of interest to our field.  To track and/or review legislation or to create your own tracking list,  click here.

Bills identified as of high interest to our field include:

  AB 60 (Santiago & Gonzalez)  - This bill will establish a not less than 12 month re/eligibility determination process for child care and establishes  "ongoing income eligible" to mean that a family's adjusted monthly income is at or below 85 percent of the most recent state median income.

AB 227 (Mayes) - This bill would create the Educational Opportunity and Attainment Program that would provide education incentive grants to CalWORKs recipients to encourage and support low-income parents who reach certain educational goals and create additional work-study slots and support services for CalWORKs recipients pursuing their education.

AB 231 (Chavez) - This bill will define State Median Income and create a phase out process.

 AB 273 (Aguiar- Curry) - Child care services: eligibility.
AB 1106 (Weber) -  This bill will allow allocated monies to support working families with child care, to be distributed over a longer period of time.  Additionally, the proposal will allow active military personnel to not have their basic housing allowance considered as part of their income when they apply for a child care subsidy.  

Find the fact sheet here.

AB 1164 (Thurmond) -  Foster care placement: funding. This bill would establish the Child Care Bridge Program for Foster Children (bridge program). 

 

Federal 

The Problems with Block Granting Entitlement Programs

Congress may soon consider proposals to convert more entitlement programs into block grants . 

This includes programs that serve families and individuals who are low income or otherwise vulnerable, such as Medicaid, which President Trump and some Republicans in Congress have called for block-granting.

In two new papers released today, we explore how   block-granting low-income programs leads to large funding declines over time, and the lessons learned from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Family (TANF) block grant.

For a grounding in why it's a bad idea to block grant entitlement programs, we have also launched a web page to explain the basics.

Visual Tools to Support Classroom Procedures, Rules, and Routines
Brittnee Walsh, Preschool Special Education Teacher, Glankler Early Learning Center
Early childhood classrooms are wonderful places for children to learn the social skills necessary for entry into kindergarten and later school success. Research indicates that the structure of the classroom environment, paired with planned instruction, supports the development of social emotional skills as well as prevents behavioral issues. During this webinar, we will address positive classroom management strategies using routines and schedules in the classroom by establishing, posting, and teaching rules and routines, organizing the environment to avoid behavior problems, using visual cues, including gestures, written labels, pictures, or objects, to assist children in understanding routines and managing time as needed.